I'm trying to understand why I get the error message "variable may not have been initialized" when testing (variable === "some text"), but I don't receive the same error when using (typeof passwordHashOrg !== 'undefined')
The code that works:
checkPass('share', function (err, res) {
"use strict";
if (err) {
console.log(err);
} else {
console.log(res);
}
});
function checkPass(username, callback) {
"use strict";
// Require
var fileSystem = require('fs');
// Static Parameters
var usernameInput = username;
// Open shadow file
fileSystem.readFile('/etc/shadow', function (error, file) {
if (error) {
return callback(error); // file does not exist
}
// convert buffer to string and then to an array
var shadowArray = file.toString().split('\n');
var passwordHashOrg;
shadowArray.forEach(function (line) {
var shadowLineArray = line.split(":");
var usernameOrg = shadowLineArray[0];
if (usernameOrg === usernameInput) {
passwordHashOrg = shadowLineArray[1];
}
});
if (typeof passwordHashOrg !== 'undefined') {
callback(null, 'user exists');
} else {
callback(null, 'unknown user');
}
});
}
and here is the code where the error message "variable may not have been initialized" appears:
checkPass('share', function (err, res) {
"use strict";
if (err) {
console.log(err);
} else {
console.log(res);
}
});
function checkPass(username, callback) {
"use strict";
// Require
var fileSystem = require('fs');
// Static Parameters
var usernameInput = username;
// Open shadow file
fileSystem.readFile('/etc/shadow', function (error, file) {
if (error) {
return callback(error); // file does not exist
}
// convert buffer to string and then to an array
var shadowArray = file.toString().split('\n');
var passwordHashOrg;
shadowArray.forEach(function (line) {
var shadowLineArray = line.split(":");
var usernameOrg = shadowLineArray[0];
if (usernameOrg === usernameInput) {
passwordHashOrg = shadowLineArray[1];
}
});
if (passwordHashOrg === 'some text') {
callback(null, 'user exists');
} else {
callback(null, 'unknown user');
}
});
}
The only difference between the two codes is:
if (typeof passwordHashOrg !== 'undefined') {
vs
if (passwordHashOrg === "some text") {