Welcome! In our last lesson, we explored basic operations in Elixir and how to manipulate data using arithmetic. Now that you have a good grasp of those fundamentals, let's move on to another crucial concept — conditionals.

Conditionals are statements that allow your program to make decisions based on certain criteria. They are essential for building dynamic and functional programs.

In this lesson, you'll learn how to use conditionals in Elixir to make your programs more flexible and interactive. Specifically, we will cover:

1. How to implement if statements to handle basic conditions.
2. How to use comparison operators to evaluate conditions.

Let's look at an example:

Elixir
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1age = 18
2score = 80
3
4if age == 18 do
5  IO.puts("You are of legal age.")
6else
7  if age < 18 do
8    IO.puts("You are a minor.")
9  end
10end
11
12if score >= 70 do
13  IO.puts("You passed the test.")
14else
15  IO.puts("You failed the test.")
16end

In the snippet above, we use if statements to check conditions. The program prints different messages based on the values of age and score.

Let's break down the code:

• The first if statement checks if age is equal to 18 using the == operator. If the condition is true, it prints "You are of legal age."

• Otherwise, if the condition is false, it checks if age is less than 18 using the < operator. If the condition is true, it prints "You are a minor."

• The second if statement checks if score is greater than or equal to 70 using the >= operator. If the condition is true, it prints "You passed the test." Otherwise, it prints "You failed the test."

As a result, the program outputs:

Plain text
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1You are of legal age.
2You passed the test.

Note, that all the conditional statements in Elixir return a boolean value (true or false). This allows you to make decisions based on the outcome of the condition.

Understanding conditionals is vital for several reasons:

1. Decision Making: Conditionals help your program make decisions. They allow your code to respond differently based on the input or state, making your applications more dynamic.

2. Real-World Applications: Many real-world applications rely on conditionals. For example, an online store might use conditionals to check if a shopping cart is empty before allowing a purchase.

3. Problem Solving: Being able to write conditional statements improves your problem-solving skills. You will be able to handle various scenarios and edge cases more effectively.

By mastering conditionals, you'll gain the ability to create more complex and functional programs. Ready to enhance your skills further? Let's dive into the practice section and apply these concepts together.