The conditional (ternary) operator

Apr 16, 2013 by David Farrell

One way to reduce the verbosity of Perl code is to replace if-else statements with a conditional operator expression. The conditional operator (aka ternary operator) takes the form: logical test ? value if true : value if false.

Let’s convert a standard Perl if-else into its conditional operator equivalent, using a fictitious subroutine. First here is the if-else:

sub calculate_salary {
    my $hours = shift;
    my $salary;
    if ($hours > 40) {
        $salary = get_overtime_wage($hours);
    }
    else {
        $salary = get_normal_wage($hours);
    }
    return $salary;
}

And here is the same statement using the conditional operator:

sub calculate_salary {
    my $hours = shift;
    return $hours > 40 ? get_overtime_wage($hours) : get_normal_wage($hours);
}

Hopefully this example shows how using the conditional operator can shorten and simplify Perl code. For further detail, check out the official documentation.

This article was originally posted on PerlTricks.com.