Ternary operator

[Rui Ueyama]

My friend asked me a question which I didn't know the answer. A google search didn't seem to give me the answer too, so let me ask here.

What's the rationale behind the decision not to provide the ternary operator? I expect it was discussed and rejected.

I'm not suggesting anything, but just trying to understand why Go is in the current shape.

[andrewc...@gmail.com]

My guess is that two ways to conditionally assign a value was decided to be a stylistic issue.
Another thing is I noticed the Go spec has all operators as left associative, C like ternary operators are right associative which might be another factor.
It could be as simple as the designers being burnt by bugs caused by ternary operators being abused too often.

[andrewc...@gmail.com]

https://golang.org/doc/faq#Does_Go_have_a_ternary_form
The tone of this faq makes me think its avoiding redundancy in favour of common style.

[Rob Pike]

Go has lots of ternary operators. If you're speaking about the lack of
a?b:c, which for some reason is often called "the" ternary operator,
it's because it is the source of too many readability debates and much
ugly code. Better not to have it.

-rob

[David Thomas]

After reading this, I just have to ask: what ternary operators does Go have? I looked at the spec, and I only see unary and binary operators. So I'm confused, unless you are allowing for built-in functions or user-defined functions to count as operators. Am I missing something?

[Skip Tavakkolian]

Range?

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[Rob Pike]

a, ok := v.(type)
v, present := m[x]
x, ok := <-c

Those are ternary. Well, the map one is quaternary, I guess.

-rob

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

Don't forget slicing:

foo[a:b]

-rob

[Rob Pike]

And even foo[a:b:c].

-rob

[Thomas Bushnell, BSG]

I wish Go supported quaternions, because if it did, I have an awesome pun right now.

[Joshua]

Punny features are very important.