Avoid Else Statement In Your Function To Write a Clean Code

When I took programming class in college, one of fundamental topic is control flow, including if - else if - else statement.

if (a === 'one') {
  // do something here
} else if (a === 'two'){
  // do something here
} else {
  // I said, do something!!
}

My lecturer taught me in a good way how to write and implement if statement. But I just remembered, I learn if statement subject before I learn about function.

It is okay if we use else outside function or in top level code, moreover we are still need else.

const sayHi = true;
if (sayHi) {
  console.log("Hi!")
} else {
  console.log("....")
}

In a function that returned something, in most cases we don't even need the else statment. Here is the example.

function func(isRich: boolean){
  if (isRich) {
    return "I am rich!";
  } else {
    return "Can you give me a money, please?";
  }
}

Since function will stop executing lines of code after return is written, we can just remove else statement.

function func(isRich: boolean){
  if (isRich) {
    return "I am rich!";
  }
  // intepreter, compiler, or anything won't execute codes bellow
  return "Can you give me a money, please?";
}

When we need to check another condition that has been specified we might use else if statement and write the logic inside the block.

function grade(score: number) {
  if (score >= 90) {
    return 'A';
  } else if (score >= 80) {
    return 'B';
  } else if (score >= 70) {
    return 'C';
  } else if (score >= 60) {
    return 'D';
  } else {
    return 'F';
  }
};

Or we can write it with switch-case.

function grade(score: number){
  switch (true) {
    case score >= 90:
      return 'A';
    case score >= 80:
      return 'B';
    case score >= 70:
      return 'C';
    case score >= 60:
      return 'D';
    default:
      return 'F';
  }
};

Two examples above work fine. But I prefer this style.

function grade(score: number){
  if (score >= 90) return 'A';
  if (score >= 80) return 'B';
  if (score >= 70) return 'C';
  if (score >= 60) return 'D';
  return 'F';
};

Thank you for reading!

Comments

[Mohammad Javed]

Personally for me, I like the switch statement. Multiple else if statements just doesn't sit comfortably with me.

[peerreynders]

• patcom
• fiddle

import { match, when, otherwise, greaterThanEquals } from 'https://unpkg.com/patcom?module';

function grade(score) {
  return match(score)(
    when(greaterThanEquals(90), () => 'A'),
    when(greaterThanEquals(80), () => 'B'),
    when(greaterThanEquals(70), () => 'C'),
    when(greaterThanEquals(60), () => 'D'),
    otherwise((_) => 'F')
  );
}

console.log([91, 80, 79, 60, 59].map(grade)); // ["A", "B", "C", "D", "F"]

Greetings from ECMAScript Pattern Matching

[Esto Triramdani N]

Thank you for new insight!
That's new for me.

[peerreynders]

This week they'll decide whether it gets to stage 2 (as an ES feature). It's been lingering in stage 1 for the past 4 years.

Daniel Ehrenberg

@littledan

Pattern matching is proposed for Stage 2 in TC39 this month. 14/10 perfect, no notes github.com/tc39/proposal-…

04:02 AM - 09 Jul 2022

---

As I'm expression oriented anyway, I'm perfectly happy with

function grade(score) {
  return score >= 90
    ? 'A'
    : score >= 80
    ? 'B'
    : score >= 70
    ? 'C'
    : score >= 60
    ? 'D'
    : 'F';
}

but that rubs many people the wrong way 🤷

[Shshank]

Thanks for sharing article, I prefer the last style without else. That's my personal opinion. But as @peerreynders mentioned about ECMA Script Pattern Matching, it's a wow for me. Will give it a try for sure.