[Solved] 2nd greatest among 4 numbers…iam getting the error as “expected : before )”

Question

I thought ternary operators were some kind of eye-candy.
This really reminds me of some sort of eye-cancer (no offense).

Better solution (with any count of variables)

If I’m right you want to extract the second greatest number from a, b, c and d and save it in k.
Try this:

int compare_int(const void* a, const void* b)
{
    int int_a = *((int*)a);
    int int_b = *((int*)b);

    if (int_a == int_b)
        return 0;
    else if ( int_a < int_b )
        return -1;
    else
        return 1;
}

int main()
{
    int value[4];

    // set values in any order:
    value[0] = 20; //second greatest
    value[1] = -36;
    value[2] = 294;
    value[3] = 3;

    qsort(value, 4, sizeof(int), compare_int);

    // now the array is sorted by value.
    // tho the second greatest number is in value[2].
    printf("%d\n", value[2]);
    return 0;
}

Reformatting your code

Nevertheless.. I reformatted your code a bit:

k = (((a > b && a > c && a > d) ? (((b > c && b > d) ? b : ((c > b && c > d) ? c : d)))) : ((b > a && b > c && b > d) ? (((a > c && a > d) ? a : ((c > a && c > d) ? c : d)))) : (((c > a && c > b && c > d) ? (((a > b && a > d) ? a : ((b > a && b > d) ? b : d)))) : ((d > a && d > b && d > c) ? (((a > b && a > c) ? a : ((b > c && b > a) ? b : c))))));

Is the same as:

k = (
        // misplaced (
            (a > b && a > c && a > d) ?
            (
                (
                    (b > c && b > d) ? b :
                    (
                        (c > b && c > d) ? c : d
                    )
                )
            )
        // misplaced )
        :
        // misplaced (
            (b > a && b > c && b > d) ?
            (
                (
                    (a > c && a > d) ? a :
                    (
                        (c > a && c > d) ? c : d
                    )
                )
            )
        // misplaced )
        :
        (
            // misplaced (
                (c > a && c > b && c > d) ?
                (
                    (
                        (a > b && a > d) ? a :
                        (
                            (b > a && b > d) ? b : d
                        )
                    )
                )
            // misplaced )
            :
            (
                (d > a && d > b && d > c) ?
                (
                    (
                        (a > b && a > c) ? a :
                        (
                            (b > c && b > a) ? b : c
                        )
                    )
                )
                // missing
                // :
                // (
                //     expression
                // )
            )
        )
    );

Easy huh?
Now you can see that you are even misplaced some (‘s and )‘s and also several :‘s

Accepted Answer