Check variable equality against a list of values

Question

You could use an array and indexOf:

if ([1,3,12].indexOf(foo) > -1)

In ECMA2016 you can use the includes method. It's the cleanest way I've seen. (Supported by all major browsers)

if([1,3,12].includes(foo)) {
    // ...
}

Using the answers provided, I ended up with the following:

Object.prototype.in = function() {
    for(var i=0; i<arguments.length; i++)
       if(arguments[i] == this) return true;
    return false;
}

It can be called like:

if(foo.in(1, 3, 12)) {
    // ...
}

---

Edit: I came across this 'trick' lately which is useful if the values are strings and do not contain special characters. For special characters is becomes ugly due to escaping and is also more error-prone due to that.

/foo|bar|something/.test(str);

To be more precise, this will check the exact string, but then again is more complicated for a simple equality test:

/^(foo|bar|something)$/.test(str);

You can write if(foo in L(10,20,30)) if you define L to be

var L = function()
{
    var obj = {};
    for(var i=0; i<arguments.length; i++)
        obj[arguments[i]] = null;

    return obj;
};

Now you may have a better solution to resolve this scenario, but other way which i preferred.

const arr = [1,3,12]
if( arr.includes(foo)) { // it will return true if you `foo` is one of array values else false
  // code here    
}

I preferred above solution over the indexOf check where you need to check index as well.

includes docs

if ( arr.indexOf( foo ) !== -1 ) { }

This is easily extendable and readable:

switch (foo) {
    case 1:
    case 3:
    case 12:
        // ...
        break

    case 4:
    case 5:
    case 6:
        // something else
        break
}

But not necessarily easier :)

var a = [1,2,3];

if ( a.indexOf( 1 ) !== -1 ) { }

Note that indexOf is not in the core ECMAScript. You'll need to have a snippet for IE and possibly other browsers that dont support Array.prototype.indexOf.

if (!Array.prototype.indexOf)
{
  Array.prototype.indexOf = function(searchElement /*, fromIndex */)
  {
    "use strict";

    if (this === void 0 || this === null)
      throw new TypeError();

    var t = Object(this);
    var len = t.length >>> 0;
    if (len === 0)
      return -1;

    var n = 0;
    if (arguments.length > 0)
    {
      n = Number(arguments[1]);
      if (n !== n)
        n = 0;
      else if (n !== 0 && n !== (1 / 0) && n !== -(1 / 0))
        n = (n > 0 || -1) * Math.floor(Math.abs(n));
    }

    if (n >= len)
      return -1;

    var k = n >= 0
          ? n
          : Math.max(len - Math.abs(n), 0);

    for (; k < len; k++)
    {
      if (k in t && t[k] === searchElement)
        return k;
    }
    return -1;
  };
}