# Conditional Statements

Conditional statements allow you to run a bit of code if a certain condition is satisfied. Conditional statements are an important part of [structured programming](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structured_programming) and let us make much more dynamic software.

There are a number of [operators](/javascript/js-basics/operators.md#comparison-operators) that help use make certain conditions, and these conditions will result in a boolean value for us to evaluate.

NOTE: the assignment operator `=` is different to the conditional operator `==`. event though they look similar, the single one is for assigning values, and the double one is for comparing values.

consider the following code:

```
var userAge = window.prompt('How old are you?');

if (userAge >= 18) {
    alert('You are an adult');
} else {
    alert('you are legally a child');
}
```

Conditional statements make use of the if/else keywords to set up control flow.

If the condition inside the parenthesis next to the `if` keyword evaluate to `true`, then that block will run, otherwise the `else` block will run if present (you don't need to include an else block)


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