CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptconditional-statements
James Paul Molnar
James Paul Molnar

Reputation: 17

Conditional not giving expected answer

I'm writing a pretty simple conditional that is only giving me the "else" answer.

The idea is that if I have more pets (pets) than my friend (friendsPets), then I need to assign it to a new variable (mostPets) to see who has the most pets. But when I log the new variable (mostPets) it's only giving me the answer from the "else" part of the conditional. The new variable should be logging 4 in the console, but it's only logging 0. If I rearrange the conditional statements it does give me 4 - but I know that's not right. I know this is a fairly simple problem, but I'm pretty new to this. Any advice?

let pets = 2;
let friendsPets = 0;
pets = 4;

if (pets > friendsPets) {
  let mostPets = pets
} else(friendsPets > pets)
let mostPets = friendsPets
console.log(mostPets);

Upvotes: 0

Views: 99

Answers (2)

Pietro Nadalini
Pietro Nadalini

Reputation: 1800

First, you need to declare your variable mostPets before doing the conditions, otherwise the variable won't be able to be accessed outside of that condition.

Also, your condition else-if was written incorrectly. With those changes it should work correctly like this:

let pets = 2;
let friendsPets = 0;
pets = 4;

let mostPets;
if (pets > friendsPets) {
  mostPets = pets
} else if (friendsPets > pets) {
  mostPets = friendsPets
}
// Note in this scenario we are ignoring if the variables are the same value, it would be better to just put 'else' without an extra condition.
console.log(mostPets);

Note: As mentioned by @mplungjan, to shorten your code you can change your logic with the following code to get the same result:

let mostPets = Math.max(pets, friendsPets);

Upvotes: 1

mplungjan
mplungjan

Reputation: 177885

You missed an if and you need to declare all the vars and not use let more than once. Let inside curly brackets is only visible in that so-called scope

You mention in a comment you need to use ifs, then If you were to remove the second condition, you do not need the second if:

const pets = 2;
const friendsPets = 0;
let mostPets = pets; // default - could be 0 or nothing (undefined)

if (pets > friendsPets) {
  mostPets = pets;
} else {
  mostPets = friendsPets;
}
console.log(mostPets);

// OR using the ternary operator;

mostPets = pets > friendsPets ? pets : friendsPets;
console.log(mostPets);

Here is a more elegant version since you are comparing numbers

const pets = 2;
const friendsPets = 0;
let mostPets = Math.max(pets,friendsPets)

console.log(mostPets);

Upvotes: 1

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