How do you use the ? : (conditional) operator in JavaScript?

Question

In simple words, what is the ?: (conditional, "ternary") operator and how can I use it?

Answer 1

Most of the answers are correct but I want to add little more. The ternary operator is right-associative, which means it can be chained in the following way if … else-if … else-if … else :

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

Equivalent to:

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

More details is here