Best Way for Conditional Variable Assignment

Question

Which is the better way for conditional variable assignment?

1st method

 if (true) {
   var myVariable = \'True\';
 } else {
   var myVariable = \'False\         


        

Answer 1

Just for completion, there is another way in addition to all the others mentioned here, which is to use a lookup table.

Say you have many possible values, you could declaratively configure a Map instead of using an if, switch or ternary statement.

Object map = {
   key1: 'value1',
   key2: 'value2,
   keyX: 'valueX'
};

var myVariable = map[myInput];

This works even for booleans:

Object map = { true: 'value1', false: 'value2 };

var myVariable = map[myBoolean];

For booleans you would probably do it the 'normal' way though with logic operators specifically designed for that. Though sometimes it can be useful, such as:

• portability: you can pass a map around
• configurability: maybe the values come from a property file
• readability: if you don't care it's a boolean or not, you just want to avoid conditional logic and reduce cognitive load that way

Note there is some overlap between the advantages using a lookup map and advantages of using a function variable (closure).