Expected an assignment or function and instead saw an expression

Question

Below is the piece of code I'm having a problem with. I get the JShint "Expected an assignment or function and instead saw an expression".

function checkVal(inputField) {
        ( inputField.val() === '' ) ? inputField.prev('.cd-label').removeClass('float') : inputField.prev('.cd-label').addClass('float');
    }
});

Answer 1

The warning is telling you that the following line could be a mistake or bug:

( inputField.val() === '' ) ? inputField.prev('.cd-label').removeClass('float') : inputField.prev('.cd-label').addClass('float');

Its an expression using the ternary operator that returns the value after the ? if the expression before it is true, or the value after the : otherwise. So basically, it's like a shorthand if statement that results in an assignment.

To remove the warning, you need to assign it to a variable like this:

var yourVariable = ( inputField.val() === '' ) ? inputField.prev('.cd-label').removeClass('float') : inputField.prev('.cd-label').addClass('float');

However, for your case you probably don't really want to assign this to anything, so you should just use an if statement instead.