diff --git a/parse.c b/parse.c
index 6acaeb8c..6185a10c 100644
--- a/parse.c
+++ b/parse.c
@@ -2207,6 +2207,8 @@ static Node *conditional(Token **rest, Token *tok) {
   node->cond = cond;
   node->then = expr(&tok, tok->next);
   tok = skip(tok, ":");
+  if (tok->at_bol)
+    error_tok(tok, "expected an expression");
   node->els = conditional(rest, tok);
   return node;
 }
diff --git a/tokenize.c b/tokenize.c
index 5c49c024..9550e71c 100644
--- a/tokenize.c
+++ b/tokenize.c
@@ -77,7 +77,7 @@ void warn_tok(Token *tok, char *fmt, ...) {
 
 // Consumes the current token if it matches `op`.
 bool equal(Token *tok, char *op) {
-  return memcmp(tok->loc, op, tok->len) == 0 && op[tok->len] == '\0';
+  return strlen(op) == tok->len && strncmp(tok->loc, op, tok->len) == 0;
 }
 
 // Ensure that the current token is `op`.