guards

Guards are conditional checks used in programming to control the flow of execution, often in functions or decision structures. They evaluate specific conditions (such as variable values) before proceeding with certain parts of the code. If the guard condition is true, the program continues as intended; if false, it may skip or handle the situation differently. Think of guards as gatekeepers that ensure certain rules or conditions are met before allowing the program to proceed, helping make code safer, more readable, and easier to troubleshoot.