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JavaScript JavaScript Basics (Retired) Making Decisions with Conditional Statements Introducing Conditional Statements

Posted by Joseph Carrillo
Joseph Carrillo
2,137 Points

Introducing Conditional Statements

For the if/else statement, couldn't you do this instead of doing the .toUpperCase:

if (answer === 'Ruby' || answer === 'ruby') {

} else {

}

This is so that only one of the conditions have to match when the user puts in ruby or Ruby.

for example,

var answer = prompt('What is the best programming language?');

if (answer === 'JavaScript' || answer === 'javascript' || answer === 'javaScript' || answer === 'Javascript') {

alert('You are right!');

}

else {

alert('You are wrong!'); }

1 Answer

Dane Parchment
MOD
Dane Parchment
Treehouse Moderator 11,077 Points
Dane Parchment
Dane Parchment
Treehouse Moderator 11,077 Points

Well you would be correct...for that specific permutation. However, there can be multiple case possibilities and permutations in this, let me list a few:

  • Ruby
  • rUby
  • RUbY
  • RUBy
  • RUBY

I think you are getting the point right? There are way to many permutations for you to consider in just a simple if statement. However, if you simply make all the letters uppercase or lowercase then you only have one permutation to check for. That's why we use the .toUpperCase or .toLowerCase when checking for case sensitivity because it reduces the number of possible combinations/permutations to just 1.

Joseph Carrillo
Joseph Carrillo
2,137 Points

I get it, it is more efficient to use the .toUpperCase and.toLowerCase because there are so many variations.