Java Ternary Operator Error

Question

Errors are illegal start of an expression
error: not a statement
';' expected

I am receiving an error about my if else statement in takeStix().

private int numStix;

public int getNumStix() {return numStix;}

public boolean takeStix(int number) {
      ( number <= 3 && number <= getNumStix() ) ? return true : return false;
}

khelwood · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-04 16:37:54Z

6

You can't put statements (like return true) in the ternary operator, only values.

So you could put:

return (number <= 3 && number <= getNumStix()) ? true : false;

But you don't even need a ternary operator for this:

public boolean takeStix(int number) {
    return (number <= 3 && number <= getNumStix());
}

edited Dec 4, 2014 at 16:37

answered Dec 3, 2014 at 21:28

khelwood

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1 Comment

Rafael Over a year ago

Is this a Java only rule? I tend to do this in my JavaScript is this a bad practice?

Chthonic Project · Accepted Answer · 2014-12-03 21:36:33Z

1

In your case, as @khelwood has shown, you don't need a ternary expression. In general, however, the format for using a ternary expression in a return statement should be

return boolean_condition ? something : something_else

For example,

public boolean takeStix(int number) {
    return number <= Math.min(3, getNumStix()) ? true : false;
}

answered Dec 3, 2014 at 21:36

Chthonic Project

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4 Comments

Rafael Over a year ago

Thank you that makes more sense.

Rafael Over a year ago

Is this a Java only rule? I tend to do this in my JavaScript is this a bad practice?

Chthonic Project Over a year ago

In general, it is a better practice to avoid ternary expressions when a simple boolean assignment suffices. I am no expert in JavaScript, but this discussion might be useful for you: stackoverflow.com/questions/19439219/…

Rafael Over a year ago

Ahhh I understand it now. Since the condition itself is a Boolean it will generate true or false regardless. Thank you, this will help my programming tremendously.

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