What is the OR operator in an IF statement
In C#, how do I specify OR:
if(this OR that) {do the other thing}
I couldn't find it in the help.
Update:
My code is:
if (title == "User greeting" || "User name") {do stuff}
and my error is:
Error 1 Operator '||' cannot be applied to operands of type 'bool' and 'string' C:\Documents and Settings\Sky View Barns\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\FOL Ministry\FOL Ministry\Downloader.cs 63 21 FOL Ministry
Solution 1:
||
is the conditional OR operator in C#
You probably had a hard time finding it because it's difficult to search for something whose name you don't know. Next time try doing a Google search for "C# Operators" and look at the logical operators.
Here is a list of C# operators.
My code is:
if (title == "User greeting" || "User name") {do stuff};
and my error is:
Error 1 Operator '||' cannot be applied to operands of type 'bool' and 'string' C:\Documents and Settings\Sky View Barns\My Documents\Visual Studio 2005\Projects\FOL Ministry\FOL Ministry\Downloader.cs 63 21 FOL Ministry
You need to do this instead:
if (title == "User greeting" || title == "User name") {do stuff};
The OR operator evaluates the expressions on both sides the same way. In your example, you are operating on the expression title == "User greeting"
(a bool) and the expression "User name"
(a string). These can't be combined directly without a cast or conversion, which is why you're getting the error.
In addition, it is worth noting that the ||
operator uses "short-circuit evaluation". This means that if the first expression evaluates to true
, the second expression is not evaluated because it doesn't have to be - the end result will always be true
. Sometimes you can take advantage of this during optimization.
One last quick note - I often write my conditionals with nested parentheses like this:
if ((title == "User greeting") || (title == "User name")) {do stuff};
This way I can control precedence and don't have to worry about the order of operations. It's probably overkill here, but it's especially useful when the logic gets complicated.
Solution 2:
The OR operator is a double pipe:
||
So it looks like:
if (this || that)
{
//do the other thing
}
EDIT: The reason that your updated attempt isn't working is because the logical operators must separate valid C# expressions. Expressions have operands and operators and operators have an order of precedence.
In your case, the == operator is evaluated first. This means your expression is being evaluated as (title == "User greeting") || "User name"
. The || gets evaluated next. Since || requires each operand to be a boolean expression, it fails, because your operands are strings.
Using two separate boolean expressions will ensure that your ||
operator will work properly.
title == "User greeting" || title == "User name"
Solution 3:
you need
if (title == "User greeting" || title == "User name") {do stuff};
Solution 4:
Just for completeness, the || and && are the conditional version of the | and & operators.
A reference to the ECMA C# Language specification is here.
From the specification:
3 The operation x || y corresponds to the operation x | y, except that y is evaluated only if x is false.
In the |
version both sides are evaluated.
The conditional version short circuits evaluation and so allows for code like:
if (x == null || x.Value == 5)
// Do something
Or (no pun intended) using your example:
if (title == "User greeting" || title == "User name")
// {do stuff}
Solution 5:
The conditional or operator is ||:
if (expr1 || expr2) {do stuff}
if (title == "User greeting" || title == "User name") {do stuff}
The conditional (the OR) and it's parts are boolean expressions.
MSDN lists the C# operators in precedence order here http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/6a71f45d.aspx . And the MSDN page for boolean expressions is http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dya2szfk.aspx .
If you are just starting to learn programming, you should read up on Conditional Statements from an introductory text or tutorial. This one seems to cover most of the basics: http://www.functionx.com/csharp/Lesson10.htm .