I originally had a route in node.js that stated this:

If the req.url === something or something or something or something, do this, else, do that.

The problem is that the else statement never got executed even though the if condition was not met. Only the if statement executes no matter what

I have broken down my route to bare minimum trying to figure out the problem. I simplified it to this:

app.get('/test', function(req,res) {

        var category = 'stupid3';

        if(category === 'stupid' || 'stupid2') {

            res.end('yup');

        } else {

            res.end('nope');

        }

});

What am I doing wrong?

Why wont the else statement execute?

I originally had a route in node.js that stated this:

If the req.url === something or something or something or something, do this, else, do that.

The problem is that the else statement never got executed even though the if condition was not met. Only the if statement executes no matter what

I have broken down my route to bare minimum trying to figure out the problem. I simplified it to this:

app.get('/test', function(req,res) {

        var category = 'stupid3';

        if(category === 'stupid' || 'stupid2') {

            res.end('yup');

        } else {

            res.end('nope');

        }

});

What am I doing wrong?

Why wont the else statement execute?

• javascript
• node.js

• 1 javascript - Check variable equality against a list of values - Stack Overflow – user202729 Commented Jul 30, 2018 at 6:58
• You could get rid of the problem entirely by using ["stupid", "stupid2"].includes(category) as the condition (see this answer). – bb216b3acfd8f72cbc8f899d4d6963 Commented Jul 5, 2019 at 19:19

2 Answers 2

You're using it incorrectly.

category === 'stupid' || category === 'stupid2'

Your version is effectively...

 (category === 'stupid') || 'stupid2'

...so because a non-empty string is "truthy", the RHS will always cause the || to pass.

the else statement is never executed because your if condition always returns true..

if (category === 'stupid' || 'stupid2') {

the second part of the condition i.e. after the || operator is 'stupid2 which is a truthy value