I'm writing a code generator which produces Scala output.

I need to emulate a ternary operator in such a way that the tokens leading up to '?' remain intact.

e.g. convert the expression c ? p : q to c something. The simple if(c) p else q fails my criteria, as it requires putting if( before c.

My first attempt (still using c/p/q as above) is

c match { case(true) => p; case _ => q }

another option I found was:

class ternary(val g: Boolean => Any) { def |: (b:Boolean) = g(b) }

implicit def autoTernary (g: Boolean => Any): ternary = new ternary(g)

which allows me to write:

c |: { b: Boolean => if(b) p else q }

I like the overall look of the second option, but is there a way to make it less verbose?

Thanks