CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cprintftext-formatting
Eyal
Eyal

Reputation: 1709

Conditional inside `printf` statement

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?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 4056

Answers (3)

Karthikeyan.R.S
Karthikeyan.R.S

Reputation: 4041

Use the ternary operator.

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

If the condition is true, then after the ? will be executed. Otherwise, after the : will be executed.

Upvotes: 3

Grzegorz Szpetkowski
Grzegorz Szpetkowski

Reputation: 37944

It looks that you want to obtain an absolute value. For int type you might use abs() function from <stdlib.h> header for such purpose:

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>

int main(void) {
    int a;

    a = 3;
    printf("%d\n", abs(a));

    a = -3;
    printf("%d\n", abs(a));

    return 0;
}

There are also labs() for llabs() (C99) for long int and long long int types respectively as well as for floating-point types e.g. fabs() from <math.h>.

Upvotes: 2

Rizier123
Rizier123

Reputation: 59701

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;

}

Upvotes: 6

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