The ternary (conditional) operator in C

Question

What is the need for the conditional operator? Functionally it is redundant, since it implements an if-else construct. If the conditional operator is more efficient than the equivalent if-else assignment, why can't if-else be interpreted more efficiently by the compiler?

Answer 1

In C, the real utility of it is that it's an expression instead of a statement; that is, you can have it on the right-hand side (RHS) of a statement. So you can write certain things more concisely.