IF

Intuition

The if presents a conditional expression. We'll talk more about when to use end with if, but you can rely on our understanding of conventional C-syntax languages that allow you to write an if statement without an end when you are only executing one command when the expression is TRUE.

No END needed

if (test) log(‘ok’)
else log (‘not ok’)

When you need to execute multiple expressions you provide a curly brace to crate a block. An END can be thought of as finishing a block of expressions that all get exectuted as a result of meeting a condition.

END needed

if (test) {
  let greeting = ‘hi’ + test
  log(greeting)
else {
  log (‘not ok’)
}

Example

General

if_<property>_<operator>_<value>,<transformation>/

Specific

if_w_gt_1000,w_500/

Exercise: Responsive Video Aspect Ratio

Use case: If you have a standard video with a 16:9 display aspect ratio and you want to serve it to a mobile device, you can test aspect ratio and width to decide whether to transform.

For example, the original size of the video is 1280 x 720 which is an aspect ratio of ~1.78. We only want to transform if the aspect ratio is greater than 0.65 and the width is greater than 1000.

if: 'ar_gt_0.65_and_w_gt_1000',

Execute the following to test this out:

node conditionals/video/conditional-ar.js

The full code for this includes a transformation that sets the aspect ratio and width.

const url = cloudinary.url('snowboarding', {
  resource_type: 'video',
  if: 'ar_gt_0.65_and_w_gt_1000',
  aspect_ratio: '0.65',
  height: 1000,
  crop: 'fill'
})