Lesson 9/11 ternary conditional statement

[geedee43]

ok so , my question is why does it return the value of W? pointScored takes the value of 21 ,and gameresult=21>20 which is true . but why does it return W and not L? also what does the : mean? me not understanding the : symbol is the reason i dont get the whole thing?
thanks for reading!
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[cakthe]

I suppose it is similar to some other programming language when we use if/else statement. Unless the format is a bit unique.
From this line:

char gameResult = (pointsScored > 20) ? 'W' : 'L';

we can assume that this part

(pointsScored > 20) ?

is like questioning, “is variable pointsScored more than 20?”. And then this part

'W' : 'L';

is like giving choice, “if the statement is true, then return ‘W’. Otherwise return ‘L’.” So I think the “:” mark is for saying “otherwise”.

[alexc]

@cakthe yep that’s exactly it! Before the : is what to return if true and after the : if what to return if false i.e. the ‘else’ .