Beginning JavaScript, 5th Edition

3Decisions and Loops

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS CHAPTER:                

• Comparing number and string values
• Making decisions with the if, else, and switch statements
• Repeating code for as long as a condition is true

WROX.COM CODE DOWNLOADS FOR THIS CHAPTER

You can find the wrox.com code downloads for this chapter at http://www.wiley.com/go/BeginningJavaScript5E on the Download Code tab. You can also view all of the examples and related files at http://beginningjs.com.

So far, you’ve seen how to use JavaScript to get user input, perform calculations and tasks with that input, and write the results to a web page. However, a pocket calculator can do all this, so what is it that makes computers different? That is to say, what gives computers the appearance of having intelligence? The answer is the capability to make decisions based on information gathered.

How will decision-making help you in creating websites? In the preceding chapter you wrote some code that converted temperature in degrees Fahrenheit to centigrade. You obtained the degrees Fahrenheit from the user using the prompt() function. This worked fine if the user entered a valid number, such as 50. If, however, the user entered something invalid for the Fahrenheit temperature, such as the string aaa, you would find that your code no longer works as expected. Now, if you had some decision-making capabilities in your program, you could check to see if what the user has entered is valid. If it is, you can do the calculation, ...