Why does JSLint complain about "Unexpected 'else' after 'return'"?

Solution 1:

It's just telling you that else after return is superfluous. The following is fine:

(function (x) {
    "use strict";
    if (x === 1) {
        return 1;
    }  
    if (x === 2) {
        return -1;
    }
    return 0;
}(1));

Solution 2:

What I've found w/ jslint is that if you adhere to the rules - 50% are ridiculous yet have no negative impact on your code. The other 50% ( or so ) will give you a good benefit. So do it for the other 50%. This particular example forces you to be explicit about the inverse of a condition or similar...instead of letting it be implicit with an else...same applies to if / else I mean.

Solution 3:

Its better to have a function always return something as it adds consistency. JSLint is known to be quite strict and hurting programmers' feelings. Cant help it. Personally I think version 1 is fine