Conditional operator?

[einar]

Whenever I'm programming anything in ZX BASIC that involves non-trivial calculations, I really miss the conditional operator from C. So much that I finally decided to post a request here...

Since ZX BASIC already incorporates many useful operators from C like << (binary shift) and & (binary and), could you please consider incorporating C conditional operator also? What I mean is allowing code like this:

Code:

IF (a < 30) THEN LET a = a + 2 ELSE LET a = a + 1 END IF

To be written like this:

Code:

LET a = a + (a < 30 ? 2 : 1)

Those unfamiliar with C programming may not recognize it at first, but after you get used to it, the latter version is a lot easier to read. It's also easier for a compiler to optimize a single expression using conditional operators, instead of multiple IFs. Also this kind of feature would not introduce any problems or ambiguity in the parser.

For more complex expressions it makes a huge difference. Here's another example:

Code:

IF (row > 0) THEN LET pos = pos | (move & UP) ELSE LET pos = pos | TOP END IF IF (row < 21) THEN LET pos = pos | (move & DOWN) ELSE LET pos = pos | BOTTOM END IF IF (col > 0) THEN LET pos = pos | (move & LEFT) ELSE LET pos = pos | LEFTMOST END IF IF (col < 31) THEN LET pos = pos | (move & RIGHT) ELSE LET pos = pos | RIGHTMOST END IF

Using conditional operators, all this code above would be simplified to this:

Code:

LET pos = pos | (row > 0 ? move & UP : TOP) | (row < 21 ? move & DOWN : BOTTOM) | (col > 0 ? move & LEFT : LEFTMOST) | (col < 31 ? move & RIGHT : RIGHTMOST)

Makes sense?