2.4. Conditionals

Conditional statements in Python and JavaScript are very similar. In Python we have three patterns:

2.4.1. Simple if

if condition:
    statement1
    statement2
    ...

In JavaScript this same pattern is simply written as:

if (condition) {
    statement1
    statement2
    ...
}

Once again you can see that in JavaScript the curly braces define a block rather than indentation. In JavaScript, the parenthesis around the condition are required because if is technically a function that evaluates to True or False.

2.4.2. if else

if condition:
    statement1
    statement2
    ...
else:
    statement1
    statement2
    ...

In JavaScript this is written as:

if (condition) {
    statement1
    statement2
    ...
} else {
    statement1
    statement2
    ...
}

2.4.3. elif

JavaScript does not have an elif pattern like Python. In JavaScript you can get the functionality of an elif statement by nesting if and else. Here is a simple example in both Python and JavaScript.

In JavaScript we have a couple of ways to write this

We can get even closer to the elif statement by taking advantage of the JavaScript rule that a single statement does not need to be enclosed in curly braces. Since the if is the only statement used in each else we can get away with the following.

2.4.4. switch

JavaScript also supports a switch statement that acts something like the elif statement of Python under certain conditions. To write the grade program using a switch statement we would use the following:

The switch statement is not used very often, and I recommend you do not use it! First, it is not as powerful as the else if model because the switch variable can only be compared for equality with an integer or enumerated constant. Second it is very easy to forget to put in the break statement. If the break statement is left out then then the next alternative will be automatically executed. For example if the grade was 95 and the break was omitted from the case 9: alternative then the program would print out both A and B.

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