ehtolauseke

Ehtolauseke, in Finnish, means a conditional expression. It is an expression that evaluates to a boolean value — true or false — and is used to decide whether a block of code should execute, whether a loop should continue, or which branch to take in a decision structure.

In programming languages, ehtolauseke appears in statements such as if, while, and for, as well as in ternary expressions. A typical ehtolauseke combines relational comparisons (for example, x > 5, status == "OK"), logical operators (and, or, not), and sometimes membership tests (such as whether a value belongs to a set). Many languages apply short-circuit evaluation for logical operators, meaning that evaluation can stop as soon as the overall result is determined.

In logic and mathematics, an ehtolauseke can be any proposition or formula that yields a truth value. Such expressions may include variables and logical operators and form the basis for proofs, algorithms, and decision processes.

In other domains, ehtolauseke is encountered in SQL as the condition expression in a WHERE clause, which filters rows based on whether rows satisfy the expression. In spreadsheet software, logical tests are used in functions like IF to choose between results.

Etymology and usage notes: the term derives from ehto (condition) and lauseke (expression). The concept is closely related to conditional logic and boolean algebra, and its exact syntax and evaluation rules vary by programming language, data types, and context (for example, handling of nulls or undefined values). See also: conditional statements, boolean logic, SQL WHERE clause.