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javasyntaxternary-operator

Why does false && (false)?false:true return true

Please don't look at the condition as they are here to ease the understanding of the behavior

Why does result equals true ?

boolean result = false && (false)?false:true;

I know we can solve the issue doing:

boolean result = false && (false?false:true);

But I am just wondering why the first syntax is incorrect, looks like the '?' operator has more priority over '&&'

Solution

  • The ternary conditional ( ?: ) has lower precedence than &&. So 

    boolean result = false && (false)?false:true;

    (having unnecessary parentheses); is equivalent to 

    boolean result = (false && false) ? false : true;

    Since (since false && false is false), this reduces to

    boolean result = false ? false : true;

    which, of course, is true.