(How) Can i use 'or' in a switch statement?

Question

Is the following code right:

var user = prompt("Is programming awesome?").toUpperCase();
switch (user) {
    case 'HELL YEAH' || 'YES' || 'YEAH' || 'YEP' || 'YEA':
        console.log("That's what I'd expected!");
    break;
    case 'KINDA'||'CANT SAY':
        console.log("Oh, you'd like it when you'll be a pro!");
    break;
    case 'HELL NO'||'NO'||'NAH'||'NOPE'||'NA':
        console.log("You can't say that!");
    break;
    default:
        console.log("Wacha tryna say mate?");
    break;
}

I tried it. But it didn't work as I wanted it to. It worked well if the input was 'hell no' or 'hell yeah', but all the later strings were just ignored!

Answer 1

I would approach this using a dictionary (object) containing your answers which you can then check with a function in the switch statement. It's a lot neater than having multiple case checks:

var user = prompt("Is programming awesome?").toUpperCase(); // 'HELL YEAH';

// 'dictionary' is just a JS object that has key/value pairs
// In this instance we have keys that map the case checks you were
// making and each has a corresponding array for its value, filled with
// the OR checks you wanted to make.
// We pass 'dict' in as the second parameter when we call checkAnswer
var dict = {
    yes: ['HELL YEAH', 'YES', 'YEAH', 'YEP', 'YEA'],
    maybe: ['KINDA', 'CANT SAY'],
    no: ['HELL NO', 'NO', 'NAH', 'NOPE', 'NA']
};

// checkAnswer returns 'yes' for the user prompt 'HELL YEAH'
// It loops over the 'dict' object and if it finds an instance of
// your user input in one of the arrays it returns the key
// in this instance 'yes' for 'HELL YEAH' (indexOf returns 0)
// otherwise it returns false (for your 'default' case)
function checkAnswer(user, dict) {
    for (var p in dict) {
        if (dict[p].indexOf(user) > -1) return p;
    }
    return false;
}

// All we do is use checkAnswer to return the key where
// the user input is found in one of the dictionary arrays.
// That will always be a single string which is what switch expects
switch (checkAnswer(user, dict)) {
    case 'yes':
        console.log("That's what I'd expected!");
        break;
    case 'maybe':
        console.log("Oh, you'd like it when you'll be a pro!");
        break;
    case 'no':
        console.log("You can't say that!");
        break;
    default:
        console.log("Wacha tryna say mate?");
        break;
}

DEMO

Answer 2

I guess you have to do :

var user = prompt("Is programming awesome?").toUpperCase();
  switch (user) {
    case 'HELL YEAH':
    case 'YES':
    case 'YEAH':
    case 'YEP':
    case 'YEA':
      console.log("That's what I'd expected!");
      break;
   case 'KINDA':
      ...
}

And so on...