How to make this if statement shorter?

Question

Can I make this statement shorter?

if(abc==\'value1\' || abc==\'value2\' || abc==\'value3\') {//do something}

to make it look similar to this:<

Answer 1

You have a couple options:

1. Leave it as it is;
2. Use an associative array/object;
3. Use a switch statement.

The second form is not valid Javascript syntax.

(2) is something like:

var abcOptions = {
  "value1" : true,
  "value2" : true,
  "value3" : true
};
if (abcOptions[abc]) {
  ...
}

(3) is:

switch (abc) {
  case "value1":
    ...
    break;
  case "value2":
    ...
    break;
  case "value3":
    ...
    break;
}

Personally I'm not a huge fan of this from a readability point of view but it's a reasonable approach with a large number of values.

I don't necessarily recommend this but it might be an option in certain circumstances. If you're only dealing with three values stick with:

if (abc == "value1" || abc == "value2" || abc == "value3") {
  ...
}

as it's much more readable.