Conditional

Conditional is a concept used in computer programming and cybersecurity, where instructions are evaluated as true or false. If the result of an evaluation is true, the conditional instruction will execute one set of instructions, otherwise, another set of instructions will be executed.

In other words, this is a way of performing a certain action based on a certain condition. A conditional statement (commonly called if-then statement) is written with the keywords “if”, “then”, and “else”, and works by testing an expression against a specified condition, and then running the appropriate code block based on the result of the evaluation.

For example, in the C programming language, the following statement will check if the value of the variable x is equal to 10:

if (x == 10)

If the value of x is indeed 10, the code block following the if statement will be executed, otherwise, the code block following the else statement will be executed.

Conditional statements are used widely in code to ensure that the program is executing instructions intelligently and as expected. This is often the basis of cybersecurity defences, where attackers will attempt to bypass conditions set by the programmer to gain access to restricted data or functionality.

Conditional statements are also used heavily in other programming tasks such as looping through data collections, as well as in various machine learning algorithms.

In summary, conditional statements are an essential element of computer programming and cybersecurity, as they allow for flexibility in what instructions are executed during a certain stage of the program. By using conditional statements, developers can control the execution flow of a program, as well as provide an extra layer of security.