Question

I have an if statement:

if(firstString == "no" && secondString == "no" && thirdString == "no"){
    // Do stuff here
}

Is there a prettier way to format this? Using false instead of "no" is not an option, since the data I’m checking is from an AJAX request and I don’t control its output. Otherwise I’d write it this way:

if(!firstString && !secondString && !thirdString){
    // Do stuff here
}

Thanks

UPDATE:

I know this is totally ridiculous, but it occurred to me that this might actually be the shortest way:

if(firstString + secondString + thirdString == "nonono"){
    // Do stuff here
}

Answer 1

Given that the number of strings is known in advance, then you have 2 options as far as I can see..

1. Leave it as it is. The if statement isn’t hard to read, and any alternate formats will either be as complicated or more complicated.

2. convert the strings to booleans when you retrieve the data from the AJAX request, so that you’re storing TRUE or FALSE instead of “yes” and “no”. That would allow you to use a your preferred if statement format, and might be more efficient than many string comparisons if you do a lot of them.

In the end, which you do is up to you, but personally I think it would be better to just stick with what you’ve got. Don’t worry about formatting an if statement, it’s pretty obvious what it does, and in my opinion doesn’t need to change.