How can I constrain the player's movement to horizontal or vertical?

Question

This is one of my first coding projects, so apologies for beginner questions....

My player controller script uses the below code, but I want to limit movement to horizontal and vertical only. No diagonal movement.

Here's how it looks:

public class PlayerController : MonoBehaviour
{
    //I’m moving the rigid body to move the player
    public Rigidbody2D theRB;

    //lets me change player's move speed in unity editor
    public float moveSpeed;


    // Update is called once per frame
    void Update()
    {
        theRB.velocity = new Vector2( Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal")
                                    , Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical")) * moveSpeed;

I've tried the below code to only accept one command at a time by using an if statement, however, with this new code, the player doesn't stop walking once the key is no longer pressed.

Just wondering if someone could point me in the direction of what I'm doing wrong?

// Update is called once per frame
void Update()
{
    if (Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal") == 1 || Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal") == -1)
    {
        theRB.velocity = new Vector2(Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal"), 0) * moveSpeed;
    }

    if (Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical") == 1 || Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical") == -1)
    {
        theRB.velocity = new Vector2(0, Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical")) * moveSpeed;
    }

thanks!

Answer 1

Your second code doesn't work, because velocity doesn't decrease, when you don't hold anything. Change it to an if...else and set the velocity to zero, when nothing is held down:

    if (Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal") == 1 || Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal") == -1)
    {
        theRB.velocity = new Vector2(Input.GetAxisRaw("Horizontal"), 0) * moveSpeed;
    }
    else if (Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical") == 1 || Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical") == -1)
    {
        theRB.velocity = new Vector2(0, Input.GetAxisRaw("Vertical")) * moveSpeed
    }
    else
    {
        theRB.velocity = Vector2.zero;
    }

Answer 2

I've tested the code your shared and its working just fine. But I think you'v attached the physics material to one of the object it might the player or might be the ground and that physics material has 0 fraction.

I am sorry for totally guessing because you have not mention anything about physic material and nothing else is coming to my mind right now. hehe...

Plz let me know if i am Right....

Cheers!