IIF

string ReturnValue = Expression == true ? TruePart : FalsePart;

We don't have any direct equivalent for this in COBOL syntax.  Of course, it's possible to do this in two lines in COBOL:

declare ReturnValue as string

if Expression set ReturnValue to TruePart else set ReturnValue to FalsePart end-if

...but probably most people would split this and use normal indentation for the sake of readability.

I think the C# (and C) '?' syntax is probably most useful in contexts like parameter passing, and it's certainly possible we might want to add a construct like this to the language at some point.

string ReturnValue = Expression == true ? TruePart : FalsePart;

Ok, thank you.

It's certainly possible to do it in two lines and it occurred to my mind but that's not what I'm looking for. I just like my code being simple but readable. That's why I very agree with you as for readability of code. But sometimes there're very simple parts of code with IF statement like following

IF (l-anItem <> NULL)

    set x to 1

ELSE

    set x to 0

END-IF

and in those cases such a syntax would be useful. Something like

move IIF(l-anItem <> NULL, 1, 0) to x

compute x = IIF(l-anItem <> NULL, 1, 0)

string ReturnValue = Expression == true ? TruePart : FalsePart;

Ok, thank you.

It's certainly possible to do it in two lines and it occurred to my mind but that's not what I'm looking for. I just like my code being simple but readable. That's why I very agree with you as for readability of code. But sometimes there're very simple parts of code with IF statement like following

IF (l-anItem <> NULL)

    set x to 1

ELSE

    set x to 0

END-IF

and in those cases such a syntax would be useful. Something like

move IIF(l-anItem <> NULL, 1, 0) to x

compute x = IIF(l-anItem <> NULL, 1, 0)

string ReturnValue = Expression == true ? TruePart : FalsePart;

What you can do is write a Integrated Pre-processor that would expand the IIF syntax into standard Cobol code. That would mean that you code and animate the IIF statement, but actually execute the expanded code.

For more information have a look at the Integrated Preprocessor Interface section of the documentation.