int a = 7, b = 21;
System.out.println( "The min is: " + (a < b ? a : b ) );

More Complicated Expressions

Here is a slightly more interesting example:

A program computes the average grade each student in a class. Students whose average grade is below 60 are given a bonus of 5 points. All other students are given a bonus of just 3 points.

Here is the program fragment that does this:

... average grade is computed here ...

average += (average < 60 ) ? 5 : 3 ;

The sub-expressions that make up a conditional expression can be as complicated as you want. Now say that student grades below 60 are to be increased by 10 percent and that other grades are to be increased by 5 percent. Here is the program fragment that does this:

... average grade is computed here ...

average += (average < 60 )? average*0.10 : average*0.05;

This is probably about as complicated as you want to get with the conditional operator. If you need to do something more complicated than this, do it with if-else statements.