coffeescript Conditionals if, if / then, if / else, unless, ternary operator

Example

The most basic instance of an if construct evaluates a condition and executes some code according to the condition outcome. If the condition returns true, the code within the conditional is executed.

counter = 10
if counter is 10
  console.log 'This will be executed!'

The if construct can be enriched with an else statement. The code within the else statement will be executed whenever the if condition is not met.

counter = 9
if counter is 10
  console.log 'This will not be executed...'
else
  console.log '... but this one will!'

if constructs can be chained using else, without any limitation on how many can be chained. The first conditional that returns true will run its code and stop the check: no conditional below that point will be evaluated thereafter, and no code block from withing those conditionals will be executed.

if counter is 10
  console.log 'I counted to 10'
else if counter is 9
  console.log 'I counted to 9'
else if counter < 7
  console.log 'Not to 7 yet'
else
  console.log 'I lost count'

The opposite form of if is unless. Unlike if, unless will only run if the conditional returns false.

counter = 10
unless counter is 10
  console.log 'This will not be executed!

The if statements can be placed in a single line, but in this case, the then keyword is required.

if counter is 10 then console.log 'Counter is 10'

An alternative syntax is the Ruby-like:

console.log 'Counter is 10' if counter is 10

The last two blocks of code are equivalent.

The ternary operator is a compression of an if / then / else construct, and can be used when assigning values to variables. The final value assigned to the variable will be the one defined after the then when the if condition is met. Otherwise, the value after the else will be assigned.

outcome = if counter is 10 then 'Done counting!' else 'Still counting'