Chapter 2: Learning Just Enough C# or VB.NET: Basic Syntax | 55 |
The Ternary and Immediate If Operators
The C# ternary and VB immediate if operators allow you to test a condition and return a different value depending on whether that condition is true or false. Listing
Listing 2-2 A ternary operator example
C#:
int bankAccount = 0;
string accountString = bankAccount == 0 ? "checking" : "savings"; VB:
Dim accountString As String =
IIf(bankAccount = 0, "checking", "saving")
The conditional part of this operator evaluates if bankAccount is equal to 0 or not when the program runs (commonly known as “at runtime”). Whenever the condition is true, the first expression, the one following the question mark for C# or following the comma for VB, “checking” in this case, will be returned. Otherwise, if the condition evaluates to false, the second expression, following the colon for C# or after the second comma for VB, will be returned. That returned value, either the string “checking” or “savings” in this case, is assigned to the accountString variable that was declared.
NOTE
In earlier versions of the VB programming language, you were required to place an underline at the end of a statement that continued to the next line. In the latest version of VB, line continuations are optional. If you’ve programmed in VB before, the missing statement continuation underline might have caught your attention, but it is now perfectly legal.
Enums
An enum allows you to specify a set of values that are easy to read in code. The example I’ll use is to create an enum that lists types of bank accounts, such as checking, savings, and loan. To create an enum, open a new file by
