What is a Ternary Operator?
According to MDN,
The conditional (ternary) operator is the only JavaScript operator that takes three operands: a condition followed by a question mark ( ? ), then an expression to execute if the condition is truthy followed by a colon ( : ), and finally the expression to execute if the condition is falsy.
In simple terms, Ternary Operator is one that takes three operand, the first being the condition (just like if) ,followed by a question mark (?) Asking for what to do if it's true, then the expression to be executed , followed by colon(:) to log the else part of the logic which the expression will follow if falsey.
See example below
var firstName = 'Abraham';
var age = 16;
/*using Ternary Operator to determine
the kind of drink he takes based on his
maturity NB: below 18 takes Juice
above 18 takes Soda
t
*/
↗️ condition. ↗️ Execution if truthy
age >=18 ? console.log( firstName + ' drinks Soda ')
: console.log( firstName + ' drinks Juice');
⬇️
else part of the argument and its declaration.
// console logs Abraham drinks Soda 🍺 (because of his age)
Also , Ternary Operation can be used in variable assignment, i.e to attribute two values to a single variable, to be assigned based on condition.
See illustration below
/*let's assign values to a course variable
depending on students academic level
*/
var level = 500;
var course = level >=200? 'depertmental': 'borrowed' ;
// console logs departmental for any level above 200
// and borrowed for anything apart from that.
/* This is possible because, JS equality Operator does its
assignment from left to right i.e the Ternary
operation is firstly carried out before iy being
assigned to the variable 'course'
*/