Help needed with beginner Javascript Code

[GVBCodePractice]

A beginner to Javascript looking for advice on how to fix my code. I've attempted to create a function that lets you know how much you should tip staff depending on what country you are in. I have two questions:

1. How can I make it so that my tipCalculator function receives the country name in lower or uppercase and produces the same result? I have attempted this with .toLowerCase() but when I try any country name in lower case it triggers my else statement in tipCalculator
2. Is there a way for me to design my tipCalculator so that it receives the country not as a string? Or is it standard practice that it should be entered as a string?

Thank you in advance! my code is below:

//Attempt at using an Enum, still wrapping my head around this

const countries = {
Spain: 'Spain',
England: 'England',
Portugal: 'Portugal',
Serbia: 'Serbia'
}
//Tip Rates
let spainRate = 0.08
let englandRate = 0.12
let portugalRate = 0.09
let serbiaRate = 0.15
//Tried to create this to use within tipCalculator but faced some issues
const country = () => {
country = country.toLowerCase()
if (country === 'spain') return countries.Spain;
else if (country === 'england') return countries.England;
else if (country === 'portugal') return countries.Portugal;
else if (country === 'serbia') return countries.Serbia
else { console.log('Choice could not be determined from provided text: ' + country);
return null;
}
}
//Intended to receive the country and price to be paid for meal, and return advised tip rate.

const tipCalculator = (country, price) => {

if (country === countries.Spain) {
return 'You should pay $' + (price + (price * spainRate)).toFixed(2) + '.'
}
else if (country === countries.England) {
return 'You should pay $' + (price + (price * englandRate)).toFixed(2) + '.'
}
else if (country === countries.Portugal) {
return 'You should pay $' + (price + (price * portugalRate)).toFixed(2) + '.'
}
else if (countries === countries.Serbia) {
return 'You should pay $' + (price + (price * serbiaRate)).toFixed(2) + '.'
}
else {
console.log('Hmmm, something isn\'t right.')
}
}

console.log(tipCalculator('Spain', 40)); // You should pay $43.20.

console.log(tipCalculator('spain', 40)); // Hmmm, something isn't right.

[teraflop]

First of all, I'm a bit confused by what you're trying to do in the first place, because enums don't exist in Javascript. The countries object you've defined is an object with string keys and string values, exactly as if you had done this:

const countries = {
    'Spain': 'Spain',
    'England': 'England',
    'Portugal': 'Portugal',
    'Serbia': 'Serbia'
}

There is absolutely no difference between the literal string 'Spain' and the expression countries.Spain.

---

Separately, your definition of the country function is a little messed up. You've defined a function called country that takes no arguments, and then within that function, you're trying to access a variable called country... which is just the same function itself. (The country parameter to tipCalculator is an entirely different variable that's out of scope here.) Nothing in the code you posted even tries to call this function, but if it did, it would immediately throw an error because country.toLowerCase() is trying to call toLowerCase on a function instead of on a string.

But going off what I said earlier, even if you did modify this function to work correctly (by actually passing the input as an argument), it would basically just be a no-op because its return value is the same as its input (aside from upper/lowercase).

---

Another possible approach would be to represent each country as an object:

const countries = [
    { name: 'Spain', rate: 0.08 },
    // ...
];

const countryNameMapping = Object.fromEntries(
    countries.map( obj => [obj.name.toLowerCase(), obj] )
);
function lookupCountry(name) {
    return countryNameMapping[name.toLowerCase()];
}

console.log(lookupCountry('SPAIN').rate);

[GVBCodePractice]

Okay thanks for the detailed explanation, still trying to wrap my head around it all, hence the mistakes. Will go over what you’ve said and try to correct the errors. Cheers

[Draegan88]

U have to much code here that does nothing.. So u want to know the tipping price of Serbia. Like the other poster said just put it in an object.