If conditional giving true although it's supposed to be false

Question

I'm having problem with the conditional always returning true. I'm not sure if it's the value it's seeing as truthy in general but it's messing with me.

Problem: Check to see if a string has the same amount of 'x's and 'o's. The method must return a boolean and be case insensitive. The string can contain any char.

Examples input/output:

XO("ooxx") => true
XO("xooxx") => false
XO("ooxXm") => true
XO("zpzpzpp") => true // when no 'x' and 'o' is present should return true
XO("zzoo") => false

function XO(str) {
  let on = 0
  let xn = 0 

  let result = ""
  for (let i = 0; i <=str.length; i++) {
    if (str[i] = "x" || "X"){
      xn++
    } if (str[i] = "o" || "O") {

      on++
    };

    if (xn == on || xn && on == 0){
      result = true
    }else  if  (xn !== on) {
      result = false

    }

    return  result
  } 

}

Seems the conditional is always returning true. Not sure if it's because the types are true (which is why I kept it strict).

problem 1 ... `=` is **assignment** ... so `str[i] = "x"` ASSIGNS the value `"x"` to `str[i]` - and `"x"` is "truthy"... if you were to fix that by using `==` instead, then problem 2 .. `str[i] == "x" || "X"` is not how you check if `str[1]` is equal to `"x"` or `"X"` ... `str[i] == "x" || str[i] == "X"` is ... or `str[i].toLwoerCase() == "x"` of course would work — Jaromanda X, Oct 20 '22 at 05:54
I've just changed it and I still have the same problems here is the new code ``` function XO(str) { let on = 0 let xn = 0 let result = "" for (let i = 0; i <=str.length; i++) { if (str[i].toLowerCase() == "x"){ xn++ } if (str[i].toLowerCase() == "o") { on++ }; if (xn == on || xn && on == 0){ result = true }else if (xn !== on) { result = false } return result } } ``` — TeeP, Oct 20 '22 at 06:02
You probably meant to put `return result` outside the loop. Consider using correct indentation to spot those types of issues easier. — mousetail, Oct 20 '22 at 06:12

Aman Mehta · Answer 1 · 2022-10-20T06:16:16.317

You have 3 mistakes in your XO function.

You have used assignment operator : = instead of equality comparison operator : ==.
You are checking condition str[i] == "x" || "X". The correct way to write this is : str[i] == "x" || str[i] == "X".
You are checking xn==on inside the for loop. You should check that once your for loop is over.

Here is the correct code -

function XO(str) {
    let on = 0
    let xn = 0

    for (let i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
        if (str[i] == "x" || str[i] == "X") {
            xn++
            continue;
        } 
        if (str[i] == "o" || str[i] == "O") {
            on++
            continue;
        };
    }
    return xn==on;
}

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 20 '22 at 06:29

You just use toLowerCase() and at the end return if on===xn

function XO(str) {
  let on = 0;
  let xn = 0;
  for (let i = 0; i < str.length; i++) {
    if (str[i].toLowerCase() === "x") {
      xn++;
    }
    if (str[i].toLowerCase() === "o") {
      on++;
    };
  }
  return xn === on
}


console.log(XO("ooxx"))
console.log(XO("xooxx"))
console.log(XO("ooxXm"))
console.log(XO("zpzpzpp"))
console.log(XO("zzoo"))

If conditional giving true although it's supposed to be false

2 Answers2