Question

Why its printing X88

public static void main(String [] args)
{
      char x = 'X';
      int i = 0;
      System.out.print(true  ? x : 0);
      System.out.print(false ? i : x);
}

Answer 1

In the first print statement, the type of the conditional expression is char (i.e. ‘X’) because this part of section 15.25 of the JLS (which is about the type of a conditional expression) applies:

If one of the operands is of type T where T is byte, short, or char, and the other operand is a constant expression of type int whose value is representable in type T, then the type of the conditional expression is T.

So the first statement prints “X”.

In the second print statement, that part doesn’t apply because i isn’t a constant expression. Instead, this section applies:

Otherwise, binary numeric promotion (§5.6.2) is applied to the operand types, and the type of the conditional expression is the promoted type of the second and third operands. Note that binary numeric promotion performs unboxing conversion (§5.1.8) and value set conversion (§5.1.13).

Binary numeric promotion converts the char ‘X’ to an int (88) and the second statement prints “88” – hence the overall result of “X88”.