Type of ternary expression

Question

Can anyone explain the output of the following program:

#include <iostream> using namespace std;  int main() {    int test = 0;    cout << "First  character " << '1' << endl;    cout << "Second character " << (test ? 3 : '1') << endl;     return 0; } 

Output:
First character 1
Second character 49

But both the printf statements should print the same line.

Answer 1

The type of the expression '1' is char.

The type of the expression (test ? 3 : '1') is at least int (or an unsigned version thereof; portably it is std::common_type_t<int, char>).

Therefore the two invocations of the << operator select different overloads: The former prints the character as is, the latter formats the integer as its decimal string representation. (The integral value of the character '1' is defined by your base character set.)