Error in use of Conditional Operator

Question

My code is like this:

if (statusCode== "1")
{
    statusCode = productStatusItemAvailable1;
}
else if(statusCode =="2")
{
    statusCode = productStatusItemOutOfStock1;
}
 else if(statusCode =="3")
{
    statusCode = productStatusItemAvailableOnRemoteDate1;
}
else if(statusCode =="4")
{
    statusCode = productStatusAlternativeItemAvailable1;
}
else if(statusCode =="5")
{
    statusCode = productStatusItemSoldOutAndOurSuppliersHaveNoAvailable;
}
else if(statusCode =="6")
{
    statusCode = productStatusItemSoldOutContactCustomerService1;
}

To make it little more readable and easy to handle I tried to apply Ternary Operator

statusCode == "1"  ? productStatusItemAvailable1: "2" ? productStatusItemOutOfStock1 : "3" ? productStatusItemAvailableOnRemoteDate1  : "4"  ? productStatusAlternativeItemAvailable1 : "5" ? productStatusItemSoldOutAndOurSuppliersHaveNoAvailable : "6" ? productStatusItemSoldOutContactCustomerService1;

But this shows an error

Can not implicitly convert string to bool.

What am I doing wrong?Or is it not possible to use with strings?

Answer 1

As pointed out, you aren't checking the value against the string. That said, you should definitely use a switch statement for this:

switch(statusCode)
{

    case "1":
        // do some stuff
    break;

    // etc...
}

Though ideally, statusCode should be an enum where each value corresponds to the error, it will make your code clearer.

Answer 2

You need a statuscode == for every condition

statusCode == "1" ? product1 : statusCode == "2" ? product2 ... etc

Answer 3

The sintaxe for ?: Ternary is:

object result = bool ? object : object;

In your code, you did not define anything after the : scope, to use like this, you could define another ternary scope after the : and apply it again, something like:

  statusCode  = statusCode == "1" ? productStatusItemAvailable1 : 
                statusCode == "2" ? productStatusItemOutOfStock1 : 
                statusCode == "3" ? productStatusItemAvailableOnRemoteDate1 : 
                statusCode == "4" ? productStatusAlternativeItemAvailable1 : 
                statusCode == "5" ? productStatusItemSoldOutAndOurSuppliersHaveNoAvailable : 
                statusCode == "6" ? productStatusItemSoldOutContactCustomerService1 
                : stirng.Empty;

The last : scope of ternary, is like the last else statment of an if structure. you have to define a value as a default value for it, because it is part of the structure of ternary operator.

Answer 4

You'd probably be better off using a switch statement, or a dictionary:

var statusCodes = new Dictionary<string, string>{};
statusCodes.Add("1", productStatusItemAvailable1); // For each message

Now you can get each message using the key:

// Will return value of productStatusItemAvailable1:
var result = statusCodes["1"];