CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascript
Mike -- No longer here
Mike -- No longer here

Reputation: 2092

Trying to shorten a conditional statement in javascript

What I want to do here is use the fewest bytes to call function f only if the variable a is not null. The function n shown will work fine, but according to my web browser, function m won't work. The browser states:

expected expression, got ';'

I then proceeded to take out the colon, figuring maybe that would do the trick, but I get the error "syntax error".

Is there a way I can shorten function n to a smaller size and have it still work or should I just stick with function n?

function g(){}
function f(){}

function m(){a?f()g():;}

function n(){if(a){f();g()}}

Upvotes: 2

Views: 73

Answers (2)

Alexander O'Mara
Alexander O'Mara

Reputation: 60597

Code golfing?

Fore!

*ahem*

You could use && for the conditional, and + to call them both together.

function m(){a&&f()+g()}

Total bytes: 24

Note: If by chance f or g returns an object, any valueOf methods will be called, which could have side-effects, but in this context I think that's unlikely.

Upvotes: 3

Bergi
Bergi

Reputation: 665545

You can do some tricks with the comma operator:

function m(){a?(f(),g()):…}

and of course the conditional operator always needs a third operand, you cannot just omit it, but use any (short) value:

function m(){a?(f(),g()):0}

You can work around that restriction by using the short-circuit behaviour of the AND operator (see What is "x && foo()"?):

function m(){a&&(f(),g())}

But don't do that. It makes your code totally unreadable.

Should I just stick with function n?

Yes, definitely.

function m() {
    if (a) {
        f();
        g();
    }
}

If you want to minify that, use one of the established minifiers instead of hand-optimising it.

Upvotes: 2

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