The code we've written so far has run line-by-line one after another. That's about to change.

Conditionals are a fundamental concept in programming that allows us to make decisions in our code based on a Boolean expression. If the expression evaluates to true, a block of code is executed. This is a powerful way to control the flow of a program. Here's an example of a simple conditional:

Boolean codeRan = false;

if(true){
   codeRan  = true;
}

Conditionals begin with the keyword if and a pair of parentheses, containing a boolean expression that must evaluate to either true or false. In the simple example provided earlier, we explicitly used a boolean literal, which will always evaluate to true. Throughout the course, we will explore more complex examples of conditionals.

Boolean shouldRunCode = false;
Boolean codeRan = false;

if(shouldRunCode){  
   codeRan  = true; // This will never run
}


//codeRan is still false

shouldRunCode = true;


if(shouldRunCode){  
   codeRan  = true; // This will run
}

// codeRan is now TRUE

It is not mandatory, but to improve readability, the statements inside the conditional block should be indented with a tab. There are several types of conditionals and operators available to us in Apex, we will explore those in the upcoming lessons.