Conditional Question and Choice

1. Conditional question
2. Condition expression
3. Conditional choice

Conditional question

There are two conditional questions in makesjs/demo2 questions.js. Just add an if with a condition expression.

module.exports = [
  // ...
  {
    if: 'license',
    name: 'author',
    message: "What's the author name to be displayed in MIT license?",
    // optional validation (only for text prompt)
    // if return value is an non-empty string, or boolean false, it's considered failed.
    validate: value => {
      if (!value.trim()) return 'Author is mandatory for license'
    }
  },
  // single-select, but only when user selected "nodejs"
  {
    if: 'nodejs',
    message: 'Do you want to use a transpiler?',
    choices: [
      // first choice has no value, means it wouldn't add any value to answers.
      // hint is an optional field for detailed explanation.
      {title: 'None', hint: 'Write plain commonjs code.'},
      {value: 'babel', title: 'Babel for ESNext', hint: 'Use next generation JavaScript, today.'},
      {value: 'typescript', title: 'TypeScript', hint: 'TypeScript is a typed superset of Javascript that compiles to plain JavaScript.'}
    ]
  }
];

The text prompt for license author will only appear if end user picked license from previous select prompt. The select prompt for transpiler will only appear if end user picked nodejs before.

Condition expression

The expression 'license' and 'nodejs' are the simplest form of conditional expression.

You can use rich logic in conditional expression with the help of and or &&, or or ||, not or !, as well as ( and ).

For example,

'nodejs && license'
'jest or jasmine'
'not webpack and requirejs'
'!webpack && requirejs'
'a && (b || c)'

The expression looks like JavaScript expression, but they are not. Remember we support dash(-) in choice value string. That means following are valid condition expression in “makes”, but they have different meaning in JavaScript expression (- is an operator in JavaScript).

'vue-sfc'
'babel && vue-sfc'

The condition expression is used for conditional question/choice/file/folder, plus the condition inside file content preprocess. All these conditions are evaluated through the same tiny expression engine, you will see the familiarity when you read other topics.

Conditional choice

Condition on choice is same, just add if: 'express' to any choice. There is no example in makesjs/demo2, but you can find plenty in dumberjs/new questions.js.