What does the question mark character ('?') mean in C++?

This is commonly referred to as the conditional operator, and when used like this:

condition ? result_if_true : result_if_false

... if the condition evaluates to true, the expression evaluates to result_if_true, otherwise it evaluates to result_if_false.

It is syntactic sugar, and in this case, it can be replaced with

int qempty()
{ 
  if(f == r)
  {
      return 1;
  } 
  else 
  {
      return 0;
  }
}

Note: Some people refer to ?: it as "the ternary operator", because it is the only ternary operator (i.e. operator that takes three arguments) in the language they are using.

This is a ternary operator, it's basically an inline if statement

x ? y : z

works like

if(x) y else z

except, instead of statements you have expressions; so you can use it in the middle of a more complex statement.

It's useful for writing succinct code, but can be overused to create hard to maintain code.

Just a note, if you ever see this:

a = x ? : y;

It's a GNU extension to the standard (see https://gcc.gnu.org/onlinedocs/gcc/Conditionals.html#Conditionals).

It is the same as

a = x ? x : y;