Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

JavaScript JavaScript Basics (Retired) Creating Reusable Code with Functions Create a max() Function

Posted by simon lavery
simon lavery
17,485 Points

why this not working

Create a new function named max() which accepts two numbers as arguments. The function should return the larger of the two numbers. You'll need to use a conditional statement to test the 2 numbers to see which is the larger of the two.

function max(firstNumber, secondNumber) { if ( firstNumber > secondNumber); return firstNumber; } else { return secondNumber;}

}

script.js 
function max(firstNumber, secondNumber) {
  if ( firstNumber > secondNumber);
  return firstNumber;
  else {
    return secondNumber;}
}

2 Answers

Jason Anders
MOD
Jason Anders
Treehouse Moderator 145,860 Points
Jason Anders
Jason Anders
Treehouse Moderator 145,860 Points

Hi Simon, Your error is with the syntax of your if statement. After the conditionals you need an opening curly brace, not a semi-colon, and after the semi-colon at the return statement, you need a closing curly brace (right before 'else').

function max(firstNumber, secondNumber) {
  if ( firstNumber > secondNumber) { //removed semi-colon - added open curly brace
  return firstNumber;
  } else { //added closing curly brace for if statement
    return secondNumber;
  } // moved curly brace down only to maintain indentations
}

Hope this help make sense. Keep coding! :)

simon lavery
simon lavery
17,485 Points

Thanks got it now

Eric Trego
Eric Trego
15,308 Points
Eric Trego
Eric Trego
15,308 Points

you are missing your brackets on your if statement. i.e "{}".

hope this helps the rest of the code should work.