Ternary Operator Precedence while doing String concatenation

[Ram Reddy]

Hi,
I am not able to understand the precedence of ternary operator while doing string concatenation

Source :Self

public class StringTest {

public static void main(String[] args)
{
final String s1 = "Foo";
final String s2 = "Bar";

final boolean b = true;
String s3 = b?s1:s1 + s2;

System.out.println("s3 is when no brackets around ternary operator " + s3); //s3 = "Foo" // 1

String s4 = (b?s1:s1) + s2;
System.out.println("s4 is when brackets around ternary operator " + s4); //s4 = "FooBar" //2
}
}

Can anyone please explain me at //1 and //2 places?
It may be silly one , but i am not able to figure it out.
please help me

[Nabila Mohammad]

Originally posted by rami marri:
Can anyone please explain me at //1 and //2 places?
It may be silly one , but i am not able to figure it out.
please help me

Hi,

I donot quite remember the precidence of the operators but I do know that whatever is in the brackets (if there is one present) then it is solved first,irrespective of the precidence. Or rather the brackets have the highest precidence.

So in the first case,
the output is as expected.

In the second case,
the brackets is solved first - and it would return s1 whether true or false as both the conditions have s1
Then this result is concatenated to s2 which gives you the result FooBar.

Hope that helped!

[Ram Reddy]

Hi mohammad,

Thanks for your reply.
My doubt is why we are getting s3 = "Foo" only.
I expected as "FooBar". I thought that might be due to precedence.
So i asked question in that way

thanks
rami

[gincy green]

hi rami marri,

in //1 the string s2 is concatenated only with string s1 which is in the second part (like this String s3 = b?s1 s1 + s2) so you are getting only "Foo"

but in //2 you are concatenating string s2 with the resulting string of (b?s1:s1) so you are getting "FooBar"

[Nabila Mohammad]

Originally posted by rami marri:
Hi,
String s3 = b?s1 s1 + s2);

s1 is one expression and s1+s2 is taken as one expression
So you get s1 which is Foo.

[Campbell Ritchie]

If you look in the Java Tutorials (which you ought to bookmark by the way), you find the conditional operator (also called the ternary operator) ?: has the lowest-but-one precedence, so the concatenation takes place before the ?: In the first case however, the s1 alone is chosen. If you have b ? s1 : s1 you are wasting keystrokes.

[Karl Prenton]

the conditional operator is "syntactically right-associative" see section 15.25 :-
http://java.sun.com/docs/books/jls/third_edition/html/expressions.html

just found this link as well : http://www.javabeginner.com/java-operators.htm

HTH

[Ram Reddy]

I got it
Thanks to all

rami

[Anoop Singh]

Hi Rimi

Well in case of ternary like in
//1
String s3 = b?s1:s1+s2;
Right hand part can be resolved as
if(b){
s1;
}
else{
s1+s2;
}
and the result of the if condition is assign to the s3 so we get //s3="Foo"

But in other case
//2

it will be resolved as
(
if(b){
s1;
}else{
s2;
}
) + s2;

the result of the if condition is resolved first and the result is concatenated with s2. and the final result is assign to the s4. That is why we get
//s4="FooBar"
Don't forget parenthesis has the highest precedence.

I Explain it in this form so that you have good understanding.
I hope you like it.

[Anoop Singh]

Originally posted by Champ Me:
Hi Rimi

Well in case of ternary like in
//1
String s3 = b?s1:s1+s2;
Right hand part can be resolved as
if(b){
s1;
}
else{
s1+s2;
}
and the result of the if condition is assign to the s3 so we get //s3="Foo"

But in other case
//2

it will be resolved as
(
if(b){
s1;
}else{
s1;
}
) + s2;

the result of the if condition is resolved first and the result is concatenated with s2. and the final result is assign to the s4. That is why we get
//s4="FooBar"
Don't forget parenthesis has the highest precedence.

I Explain it in this form so that you have good understanding.
I hope you like it.

[Ram Reddy]

Thanks champ me
thanks you very much for spending your valuable time

rami

[Campbell Ritchie]

Agree, thank you.
I never realised ?: associates to the right. Thank you Frank.

Those of you who are new to the Ranch: please use the code button below the message window; it makes quoted code much easier to read.