Assign only if condition is true in ternary operator in JavaScript

javascript ternary-operator
codiac picture codiac · Feb 21, 2013 · Viewed 78.7k times · Source

Is it possible to do something like this in JavaScript?

max = (max < b) ? b;

In other words, assign value only if the condition is true. If the condition is false, do nothing (no assignment). Is this possible?

Answer

Bergi picture Bergi · Feb 21, 2013

Don't use the ternary operator then, it requires a third argument. You would need to reassign max to max if you don't want it to change (max = (max < b) ? b : max).

An if-statement is much more clear:

if (max < b) max = b;

And if you need it to be an expression, you can (ab)use the short-circuit-evaluation of AND:

(max < b) && (max = b)

Btw, if you want to avoid repeating variable names (or expressions?), you could use the maximum function:

max = Math.max(max, b);

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