Fundamentals - SCJP Sun Certified Programmer for Java Platform SE6 - page 55

Because c is 0, the expression c != 0 is false and evaluation stops. The variable three
is false and this code does not throw an exception at runtime.
Short-Circuit Behavior
Watch for the short-circuit behavior on the exam. The exam question might alter a vari-
able in the right operand. For example, what is the output of the following code?
int x = 6;
boolean answer = (x >= 6) || (++x <= 7);
System.out.println(x);
Because x >= 6 is true, the incrementing of x does not occur in the right operand, so the
output of this code is 6.
The Conditional Operator
Java contains a conditional operator ? : , often referred to as the ternary operator because
it is the only operator in Java that has three operands. The syntax for the conditional
operator is
boolean_expression ? true_expression : false_expression
The fi rst operand must be a boolean expression. If this boolean expression is true , then
the second operand is chosen; otherwise, the third operand is chosen. The second and third
operands can be any expressions that evaluate to a value, or any method calls that return a
value.
The conditional operator is a condensed version of an if/else statement that can be handy
in a lot of different situations, especially when outputting or displaying data. For example,
what is the output of the following statements?
int x = 6;
System.out.println( x != 0 ? 10/x : 0);
Because x is not 0, the output is the result of 10 / 6 , which is 1.
Let's look at another example. What is the output of the following statements?
double d = 0.36;
System.out.println( d > 0 && d < 1 ? d *= 100 : “not a percent”);
Because d is between 0 and 1, the output is 36.0. There is no requirement that the
second and third operands be the same data types (or even compatible types).