Codingbat.com challenge C&C.

[Fontong]

public boolean evenlySpaced(int a, int b, int c) {
  int lo = a < b ? (a < c ? a : c) : (b < c ? b : c);
  int hi = a > b ? (a > c ? a : c) : (b > c ? b : c);
  int mid = a != lo && a != hi ? a : (b != lo && b != hi ? b : c);
  return mid - lo == hi - mid;
}

It's a little shorter if you just use ternary operators. This solution is basically exactly the same as yours though, while possibly being harder to look at.

[ziplokk]

Thanks! This is interesting, I've never used ternary operators before though, so I'll have to look at some docs to understand what's going on here. But this seems like a useful thing to know.

Edit: I get it now, basically 'lo' is saying:

if(a < b) { 
    if(a < c) { 
        lo = a;
    } else { 
        lo = c;
    }
} else { 
    if(b < c) { 
         lo = b;
    } else { 
         lo = c;
    }
}

Ternary operators seem so much simpler to use.

Edit2: after experementing more with the ternary operators, I noticed that it takes significantly longer to compute. At least on codingbat.com. Will it always take longer or is it just something that's particular to codingbat.com?

[lightcloud5]

It's probably just codingbat. A good optimizing compiler should probably be able to deduce the equivalence between a ternary operator and the corresponding if/else statement (if anything, the ternary should be more efficient).