'I found VARIABLE="${VARIABLE:-""}" at the very begin of a bash script, cannot understand what :- is doing here

I need to install a product for Linux that comes with an install.sh script. Before running it I want to understand what it will do to my system. At the very begin of the script there is something like VARIABLE="${VARIABLE:-""}". I know ${VARIABLE} is reference to access the content of the variable VARIABLE. But I really don't know the purpose of :-"" Can you help me please?



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