How to throw an error during a parameter check without if-statements in Google-Earth-Engine? - throw

Question

I am working on a new version of the bfast monitor algorithm in Google Earth Engine. See the code of the original algorithm on Github.
The function bfastMonitor() takes user-defined parameters and applies some parameter checks before starting actual calculations. When the user-defined parameter settings are incompatible with the algorithm, an error should be raised.
During the parameter check, two types of if statements are made: statements that only check the parameter boundaries and raise an error at incompatible values, and statements that check and rewrite the contents of a parameter and raise an error at incompatible values. For the sake of the focus of this question, I will consider only the latter one.
Obviously, in a conventional coding paradigm, if-statements can be used to do this parameter check, however, using if-statements goes against the client-server model of GEE.
Consider the period parameter, which can only be 2,4,6,8, or 10. This parameter code used to index a list later in the code (line 459 on Github), where a period-value of 4 means that the list should be indexed at position 1, for instance.
Currently the implementation looks like this, using if-statements:
period = period||10
if (period == 2) {
period = 0;
} else if (period == 4){
period = 1;
}else if (period == 6){
period = 2;
}else if (period == 8){
period = 3;
}else if (period == 10){
period = 4;
}else {
alert("Error: for period parameter, we only have 2, 4, 6, 8,10. Choose one of these values");
}
Later on, the period parameter is used a form like this (from Github):
var exampleList = ee.List([0.001, 0.002, 0.003, 0.004, 0.005]);
var exampleValue = exampleList[period];
The code could be rewritten easily to get rid of the if-statements, like this for instance:
var period = ee.Number(6);
var periodDict = ee.Dictionary({
'2':0,
'4':1,
'6':2,
'8':3,
'10':4,
});
var exampleList = ee.List([0.001, 0.002, 0.003, 0.004, 0.005]);
var exampleValue = exampleList.get(periodDict.get(period.format()));
But then I don't know how to retain the opportunity to throw an error when the value for period is out of bounds.
How can I check the parameters of a function in Google Earth Engine and throw errors while avoiding if-statements?

Answer 1

There is nothing at all wrong with using a JavaScript if statement when it works. The advice you linked is about using ee.Algorithms.If which is unfortunately often inefficient — that's completely unrelated. The usual problem with a JavaScript if is when you're trying to use it on a server-side value that hasn't been computed yet.
But in your case, it looks like you want to validate a user-provided parameter. if is a perfectly fine way to do this.
I'll suggest one improvement: instead of using alert("error message");, use throw new Error:
throw new Error("For period parameter, we only have 2, 4, 6, 8,10. Choose one of these values");
This has two advantages:
It doesn't pop a dialog that the user must interact with before fixing the problem, but just results in an error message in the usual place, the Code Editor's Console.
It will stop the rest of the code from executing, which alert() doesn't.