The ternary operator is a replacement for the if statement. In some languages (e.g. C, awk), its syntax is as follows: return(condition ? expression1 : expression2) The ternary operator returns the value of whichever action it takes. In this way, it differs from the if statement, which does not (in most languages) return a value. The example above is similar to: if condition return(expression1) else return(expression2)