Question

Are there any understanding / maintainability issues that result from code like

inVar1 == 0 ? NULL : v.push_back(inVar1); inVar2 == 0 ? NULL : v.push_back(inVar2); 

and so forth.

The possibly confusing idea is using the ternary operator for program flow rather than variable assignment, which is the usual explanation.

I haven’t seen coding standards at work that address this usage, so while I’m comfortable doing this I’d like to find out if there is a good reason not to.

Answer 1

I think it’s confusing and a lot harder to read than simply typing;

if (inVar != 0)   v.push_back(inVar); 

I had to scan your example several times to figure out what the result would be with any certainty. I’d even prefer a single-line if() {} statement than your example – and I hate single-line if statements 🙂