what's the usage of logical operator in this piece of code from corona cannon.

Getting Started Newbie Questions
#1

I was going through the code in corona cannon and stumbled upon this. I tried to figure out the purpose of its usage. 

function cannon:getAmmoCount() return #balls + (self.ball and 1 or 0) end

I ended up with the following error :- attempt to perform arithmetic on a table value. when i removed the or operator.

function cannon:getAmmoCount() return #balls + (self.ball and 1) end

Can someone explain how self.ball a table value doesn’t show error using the first approach, but does when i change it to the second approach. I have a vague idea what it could be, but i’m not sure.

#2

it’s Lua’s version of the ternary operator

#3

Haha, thanks a lot

#4

it’s Lua’s version of the ternary operator

#5

Haha, thanks a lot