return statement in ternary operator c++

Question

I wrote the absolute function using ternary operator as follows

int abs(int a) {
 a >=0 ? return a : return -a;
}

I get the following error messages

../src/templates.cpp: In function ‘int abs(int)’:
../src/templates.cpp:4: error: expected primary-expression before ‘return’
../src/templates.cpp:4: error: expected ‘:’ before ‘return’
../src/templates.cpp:4: error: expected primary-expression before ‘return’
../src/templates.cpp:4: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘return’
../src/templates.cpp:4: error: expected primary-expression before ‘:’ token
../src/templates.cpp:4: error: expected ‘;’ before ‘:’ token
../src/templates.cpp:5: warning: no return statement in function returning non-void

If I write like this

return a>=0 ? a : -a;

I don't get any error. What's the difference between the two?

Answer 1

The second and third arguments to the ternary operator are expressions, not statements.

 return a

is a statement