Actionscript Cookbook

1.4. Performing Complex Conditional Testing

Problem

You want to make a decision based on multiple conditions.

Solution

Use the logical AND (&&), OR (||), and NOT (!) operators to create compound conditional statements.

Discussion

Many statements in ActionScript can involve conditional expressions, including if, while, and for statements, and statements using the ternary conditional operator. To test whether two conditions are both true, use the logical AND operator (&&), as follows (see Chapter 10 for details on working with dates):

// Check if today is April 17th.
now = new Date(  );
if (now.getDate() == 17 && now.getMonth(  ) == 3) {
  trace ("Happy Birthday, Bruce!");
}

You can add extra parentheses to make the logic more apparent:

// Check if today is April 17th.
if ((now.getDate() == 17) && (now.getMonth(  ) == 3)) {
  trace ("Happy Birthday, Bruce!");
}

Here we use the logical OR operator (||) to test whether either condition is true:

// Check if it is a weekend.
if ((now.getDay() == 0) || (now.getDay(  ) == 6) ) {
  trace ("Why are you working on a weekend?");
}

You can also use a logical NOT operator (!) to check if a condition is not true:

// Check to see if the name is not Bruce.
if (!(name == "Bruce")) {
  trace ("This application knows only Bruce's birthday.");
}

The preceding example could be rewritten using the inequality operator (!=):

if (name != "Bruce") {
  trace ("This application knows only Bruce's birthday.");
}

Any Boolean value, or an expression that converts to a Boolean, can be used as the test condition:

// Check to see if a movie clip is visible. If so, display a message. This condition
// is shorthand for myMovieClip._visible == true.
if (myMovieClip._visible) {
  trace("The movie clip is visible.");
}

The logical NOT operator is often used to check if something is false, rather than true:

// Check to see if a movie clip is invisible (not visible). If so, display a message.
// This condition is shorthand for myMovieClip._visible != true or 
// myMovieClip._visible == false.
if (!myMovieClip._visible) {
  trace("The movie clip is invisible. Set it to visible before trying this action.");
}

The logical NOT operator is often used in compound conditions along with the logical OR operator:

// Check to see if the name is neither Bruce nor Joey. (This could also be rewritten
// using two inequality operators and a logical AND.)
if (!((name == "Bruce") || (name == "Joey"))) {
  trace ("Sorry, but only Bruce and Joey have access to this application.");
}

Note that ActionScript does not bother to evaluate the second half of a logical AND statement unless the first half of the expression is true. If the first half is false, the overall expression is always false, so it would be inefficient to bother evaluating the second half. Likewise, ActionScript does not bother to evaluate the second half of a logical OR statement unless the first half of the expression is false. If the first half is true, the overall expression is always true.