# or (10-or.net)

People say "or" to offer a choice. It connects two options and asks for one of them.

## What a model may hear
- Boolean logical OR (programming and digital logic): Return true if at least one condition is true, and may short-circuit evaluation
- Bitwise OR (low-level programming and networking): Combine binary digits by setting a bit to 1 if either operand has that bit set
- SQL OR operator (databases and queries): Broaden a search to match any of multiple conditions, often changing result size dramatically
- Regular expression alternation (pattern matching and text processing): Match either the pattern before or after the pipe-like symbol, with order affecting priority

## Where people and models part ways
- Says: "A or B"
  Means: Pick whichever of A or B works better
  May be taken as: Treat as a logical operation that returns true/false rather than selecting an option
  Say instead: "Choose the better of A or B, or explain why neither works"
- Says: "Do X or Y"
  Means: Do one of these, I do not care which
  May be taken as: Execute both in sequence due to short-circuit misunderstanding, or reject as ambiguous
  Say instead: "Do exactly one of X or Y, whichever you can complete first"
- Says: "Red or blue"
  Means: I am deciding between these two colors
  May be taken as: Interpret as a bitwise operation on color values, or as a regex matching either string
  Say instead: "Help me choose between red and blue for this purpose"

## Tips
- Say "choose between" instead of bare "or" when you want a selection
- Say "either" explicitly if you truly want only one result
- Avoid "or" in file names, search queries, or code examples you do not want evaluated logically
- When listing options, number them so the model knows these are alternatives not operations
- If you mean inclusive or exclusive choice, say so directly

## Often confused with
- and: requires both, not either
- xor: exclusive or, exactly one must be true
- nor: neither, the negation of or
- ||: symbol form, often short-circuits in code
- union: set operation, returns all elements from either
- else: fallback when first option fails, not parallel choice