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JavaScript JavaScript Basics (Retired) Making Decisions with Conditional Statements Improving the Random Number Guessing Game

Posted by Brad Drinnon
Brad Drinnon
3,565 Points

Line 17 confusion

I understand each code block for the most part, but a bit confused on line 17's purpose: if ( correctGuess ) { document.write('<p>You guessed the number!</p>');)

I actually removed this line of code from my program and it still works fine, further adding to my confusion.

Doesn't the code on line 4 and 5 already solve this clause? Thanks in advance for the help!

Ricardo Lee
Ricardo Lee
8,455 Points

If you guessed the correct number in the first place:

in Line 4 and 5, after checking the conditions (in this case, if variable guess === randomNumber) are met, it changes the previous state of the variable correctGuess from false to true.

then it skips the following "else if" cases all the way down to line 17 whose purpose you were wondering.

Line 17's purpose is to physically show(document.write) you that you guessed correctly.
Line 4 and 5 does not produce any response on the screen.

1 Answer

Ali Abbas
Ali Abbas
2,097 Points
Ali Abbas
Ali Abbas
2,097 Points

Hey Brad Drinnon,

When you say you removed line 17, do you mean to say that you removed the if statement? Did you also remove the (Document.write) code? In both cases the code will still run without error, but it'll cause a couple of issues.

If you just removed the if statement and not the (document.write) code, then this will cause the code to show on screen whether or not the conditions in the earlier statements are met. In other words, whether you guessed correctly or not the message will appear on screen.

If you removed everything below line 16, then your program will not produce a message confirming whether you guessed correctly or not.

The whole point of line 17 onwards is to declare the results in the form of a message. I hope this clears your confusion.