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Conditional (ternary) operator

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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 {{Glossary("truthy")}} followed by a colon (:), and finally the expression to execute if the condition is {{Glossary("falsy")}}. This operator is frequently used as an alternative to an if...else statement.

{{InteractiveExample("JavaScript Demo: Conditional operator")}}

```js interactive-example function getFee(isMember) { return isMember ? "$2.00" : "$10.00"; }

console.log(getFee(true)); // Expected output: "$2.00"

console.log(getFee(false)); // Expected output: "$10.00"

console.log(getFee(null)); // Expected output: "$10.00"

## Syntax

```js-nolint
condition ? exprIfTrue : exprIfFalse

Parameters#

  • condition
  • : An expression whose value is used as a condition.
  • exprIfTrue
  • : An expression which is executed if the condition evaluates to a {{Glossary("truthy")}} value (one which equals or can be converted to true).
  • exprIfFalse
  • : An expression which is executed if the condition is {{Glossary("falsy")}} (that is, has a value which can be converted to false).

Description#

Besides false, possible falsy expressions are: null, NaN, 0, the empty string (""), and undefined. If condition is any of these, the result of the conditional expression will be the result of executing the expression exprIfFalse.

Examples#

A basic example#

const age = 26;
const beverage = age >= 21 ? "Beer" : "Juice";
console.log(beverage); // "Beer"

Handling null values#

One common usage is to handle a value that may be null:

const greeting = (person) => {
  const name = person ? person.name : "stranger";
  return `Howdy, ${name}`;
};

console.log(greeting({ name: "Alice" })); // "Howdy, Alice"
console.log(greeting(null)); // "Howdy, stranger"

Conditional chains#

The ternary operator is right-associative, which means it can be "chained" in the following way, similar to an if … else if … else if … else chain:

function example() {
  return condition1 ? value1
    : condition2 ? value2
    : condition3 ? value3
    : value4;
}

This is equivalent to the following if...else chain.

function example() {
  if (condition1) {
    return value1;
  } else if (condition2) {
    return value2;
  } else if (condition3) {
    return value3;
  } else {
    return value4;
  }
}

Specifications#

{{Specifications}}

Browser compatibility#

{{Compat}}

See also#