What is “?:” notation in JavaScript?

Question

I found this snippet of code in my travels in researching JSON:

var array = typeof objArray != \'object\' ? JSON.parse(objArray) : objArray;

<

Answer 1

It's called a Conditional (ternary) Operator. It's essentially a condensed if-else.

So this:

var array = typeof objArray != 'object' ? JSON.parse(objArray) : objArray;

...is the same as this:

var array;
if (typeof objArray != 'object') {
    array = JSON.parse(objArray);
} else {
    array = objArray;
}