Strange behaviour of assign of context var with init bool value

General
1

Does anyone see what i am doing wrong? After defining the variables with a context get it goes wel for all except for the bool one. SetTempCFirst is not set in the program and stays alwas true. If i put in the extra line SetTempCFirstOn = context.get('SetTempCFirstOn') everything works as expected.

SetTempC = context.get('SetTempC') || 0
SetTempCOld = context.get('SetTempCOld') || 0
SetTempCFirstOn = context.get('SetTempCFirstOn') || true

// Line below changes result. Otherwise SetTempCFirstOn is not set and always true
SetTempCFirstOn = context.get('SetTempCFirstOn')
if (msg.topic == 'SetTempC') {
context.set('SetTempC',msg.payload)
msg1 = null
msg2 = null
}

if (msg.topic == 'Tick') {
if (msg.payload == 'on') {
msg1 = {payload:SetTempC}
msg1.topic = 'SetTempC'
// Check if it's turned on
if (SetTempCFirstOn === true) {
msg2 = {payload:'ON'}
msg2.topic = 'SetTempCTimer'
context.set('SetTempCFirstOn',false)
} else {
// Check status changed
if (SetTempCOld != SetTempC) {
msg2 = {payload:'CHANGED'}
msg2.topic = 'SetTempCTimer'
context.set('SetTempCOld',SetTempC)
} else {
msg2 = null
}
}
}
if (msg.payload == 'stopped') {
msg1 = null
msg2 = {payload:'OFF'}
msg2.topic = 'SetTempCTimer'
context.set('SetTempCFirstOn',true)
}
}
return [msg1, msg2];

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2

Solved: it's not assigning but a trick :wink: Use assign to be sure. Works only with non bool values.

3

The problem is the way you are trying to set the default value using the || operator.

If you set SetTempCFirstOn to false then the above code will return true because the left-hand side of the || is false.

If false is a valid value, then you cannot use the || trick - you have to be explicit:

var SetTempCFirstOn = context.get('SetTempCFirstOn');
if (SetTempCFirstOn === undefined) {
    SetTempCFirstOn = true
}

Please also read this post about how to share code/flows in the forum - How to share code or flow json

4

Pfff that was a pain to find out. Thought I was gone crazy. I was presuming it was a valid stament to assign values but it is a trick when there is a false on the left side the right side is chosen. A pipe statement. That I have to find out by try and error.

Thanks without this explanation I scratched my head even longer.