Conditional inside `printf` statement

Question

Is there a way to shorten this:

if (a > 0)
    printf("%d", a);
else
    printf("%d", -a);

I mean, is there a way to write all this inside one printf with the ? operator?

Answer 1

This should work for you:

printf("%d", (a > 0? a: -a));

Input/Output:

 5 -> 5
-5 -> 5

A little test program:

#include<stdio.h>

int main() {

    int a = -5, b = 5;

    printf("%d\n", (a > 0? a: -a));
    printf("%d\n", (b > 0? b: -b));

    return 0;

}