if/else vs ternary operator

Question

Considering the evaluation time, are following two equivalent?

if(condition1)
{
    //code1
}
else
{
    //code2
}

condition1 ? code1 : code2

Or they are just syntactically different?

Answer 1

The difference is that the latter station can be used to return a value based on a condition.

For example, if you have a following statement:

if (SomeCondition())
{
    text = "Yes";
}
else
{
    text = "No";
}

Using a ternary operator, you will write:

text = SomeCondition() ? "Yes" : "No";

Note how the first example executes a statement based on a condition, while the second one returns a value based on a condition.

Answer 2

Well ... In the former case, you can have any amount or type (expression vs statement) of code in place of code1 and code2. In the latter case, they must be valid expressions.