Question

In javascript I have an if statement and I want to log the first condition that defaulted to true. For instance if a === true then I want to console.log a (update: e.g., “a” or “b” or “c”, the actual character).

Any ideas?

if(a || b || c){ console.log(this) }

Thanks guys!

Answer 1

The best thing to do is, of course, use a debugger and inspect a, b, and/or c when you branch into the if statement’s body. 🙂

Doing it in code, there’s no shortcut if you’re really trying to see “a”, “b”, or “c” update what was I thinking? Of course there’s a shortcut:

if(a || b || c){
    console.log(a ? "a" : b ? "b" : "c");
}

Or if you want to see the value as well:

if(a || b || c){
    console.log(a ? "a: " + a : b ? "b: " + b : "c: " + c);
}

Live example | Live source

---

Original longer version:

if(a || b || c){
    if (a) {
        console.log("a: " + a);
    }
    else if (b) {
        console.log("b: " + b);
    }
    else {
        console.log("c: " + c);
    }
}

Or (and this is quite tricky and much longer, so not recommended):

if(a || b || c){
    switch (false) {
        case !a:
            console.log("a: " + a);
            break;
        case !b:
            console.log("b: " + b);
            break;
        default:
            console.log("c: " + c);
    }
}

…which works because switch statement cases are evaluated at runtime, and in order.