I don't see the difference, and I feel like they can be used interchangeably.
✓ ANSWER ACCEPTED
Is there a difference between "if not" and " == to nil" ?
2 answers
✓ Accepted answer
They can be used for the same purpose but not and nil are not the same.The major difference between not and nil is that not is a boolean and nil represents complete nothingness. So you can do
frame.Visible = not frame.visible
but you cant do
frame.visible = nil
Nil can also be used to remove/destroy a variable/script whilst not can't. So if you are using an if statement deciding if something is or not something else use not . If you want to change something to blank/remove it from the game but still want to use it later(nil doesn't completely destroy an object) ,then use nil.Also a variable is nil,before you asign it a value.
Not on the other hand is used to inverse a bool so
Not false = true
Not true = false
basically it's English counterpart.
So the difference between if == not and if == nil is if == not will check if its not whatever follows after so for example
if Car == not fixed then
end
whilst if == nil will check if something is nil or blank.
local Car
if Car == nil then
Car:Destroy()
end
Truth checks and falsy values
Everything is a lie these days
When you see a bit of code which says
if not value then
-- Code
end
What it's really saying is "If value is 'falsy', then..."
However, when you see a bit of code which says
if value == nil then
-- Code
end
What it's really saying is "If value does not exist, then..."
So what is a 'falsy' value?
In Lua, everything is either 'truthy' or 'falsy', which determines how it behaves under truth checks (if, and, or, not, while, etc). The only values which are 'falsy' in Lua are:
nilfalse
And everything else is 'truthy'. This means that when you do not value, it is saying "If value is 'truthy', then false. Else true"
This means that the only difference between the two is that not value will be true for nil and false, whereas == nil will be true only for nil.
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3 comments
Why not just use "if Car ~= fixed then"?
http://wiki.roblox.com/index.php?title=Writing_Clean_Code#Booleans
~ is not there's no difference between them.