how can I compare a string with several values? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicate:
array.contains(obj) in JavaScript

Something like:

if (mystring == "a" || mystring == "b" || mystring =="c")

I was hopping to do:

if (mystring in ("a", "b", "c"))

is it possible?

Answer 1

You could use indexOf() like this

if ( [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ].indexOf( mystring ) > -1 ) { ... }

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EDIT With ES7 comes a little simplification. As of today just Chrome 47+ and FF 43+ seem to support it:

if ( [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ].includes( mystring ) ) { ... }

• MDN on Array.prototype.includes()

Answer 2

Using indexOf is first thing that comes to mind, however you have to keep in mind, that there's no .indexOf function in older IEs (so you would have to use your custom code to simulate it, or just go straight to something like jQuery.inArray or underscore.js indexOf).

if ([ 'a', 'b', 'c' ].indexOf( mystring ) > -1 ) { ... }

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Side note: as you can see by looking at inArray definition in jQuery source, writing your own indexOf replacement is pretty easy. So like I said - write your own method, copy-paste it from other libraries or just use those libs if you want to be able to use indexOf in every browser out there.