Bit representation and meaning of format

Question

I am working on a home assignment and I don't understand one thing about it.. Maybe some of you guys can help me with that.

(a < 0) ? 1 : -1

What does this mean?

Google "ternary" or "conditional" operator (I've removed an errant full stop in the code snippet). — Bathsheba, Oct 02 '14 at 12:22
So this is basically another representation of if and else-statements? — drleifz, Oct 02 '14 at 12:29
~((a >> W) << 1) would this be equivalent ? Where W meaning Word size (which is 31 in this context) — drleifz, Oct 02 '14 at 12:35
also if this is homework, why dont you just write it in C code and see the result? that is what i used to do. — jgr208, Oct 02 '14 at 12:42

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Oct 02 '14 at 12:27

1

This is basically saying is the variable a less then 0? if it is 1 if it is not then -1 it is like this

if(a<0)
   1
else
  -1

answered Oct 02 '14 at 12:27

jgr208

1 Answers1