Assign only if condition is true in ternary operator in JavaScript

Question

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.

Answer 1

An expression with ternary operator must have both values, i.e. for both the true and false cases.

You can however

max = (max < b) ? b : max;

in this case, if condition is false, value of max will not change.

Answer 2

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);

Answer 3

You can just set max to itself if the condition is false.

max = (max < b) ? b : max;

Or you can try using the && operator:

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

Or to keep your code simple, just use an if.

if(max < v) max = b;