The Ternary Operator

Ternary means composed of three parts. In Ruby (and also in other programming languages), there is a common programming idiom called the ternary operator, which allows a quick if/else conditional to be put on one line by breaking it into three parts:

user_input = 'password'
secret = 'password'
user_has_access = user_input == secret ? true : false 

The three parts are the condition (user_input == secret), the statement if true (true), and the statement if false (false). The three parts are separated first by a ? and secondly by a : notation.

While Ruby doesn't always require syntax such as parentheses, the preceding statement may be a bit hard to read unless you are very familiar with how Ruby handles the order of operations. Here is a clearer way of writing the preceding code:

user_has_access = (user_input == secret) ? true : false

The ternary operator is great for quick one-liners. However, if lots of complex logic is starting...