Leveraging JavaScript’s Type Coercion

JavaScript has no Static Type System; it is dynamic in nature. But that does not mean it doesn’t have types. With statically-typed languages like Java, you will see type information strewn all over the code– attached to formal parameters, on local variables, on class variables, etc. Dynamical languages have types, it is just that types are associated with the variable value, rather than the variable itself.

Using “== null” to Test for Null and Undefined

JavaScript treats many values as “falsy”; these include null, undefined, zero and the empty string. JavaScript also has the triple equals operator (===), which tests for type and value equality; and the double equals operator (==), which only tests for value equality and allows for type coercion.

A common scenario is having to test for null or undefined. You can do this by leveraging type coercion. Let’s write a quick code snippet that tests double equals with the various “falsy” values:

//create a map of
var falsies = {null: null, undefined: undefined, emptyString: '', zero: 0};
for(var key in falsies) {
  var test = falsies[key] == null;
  console.log("Comparing " + key + " to null using double equals returns " + test);
}

This code outputs the following to console:
Comparing null to null using double equals returns true
Comparing undefined to null using double equals returns true
Comparing emptyString to null using double equals returns false
Comparing zero to null using double equals returns false

As you can see null and undefined both return true, the others return false.

Casting a Falsy/Truthy Value to Boolean

As we all know, using the bang operator (!) negates a predicate expression. At first glass, double negating an expression (!!) may seem pointless, but it does allow for the conversion from falsy/truthy values to the corresponding boolean value. For example:

!!undefined //=>false
!!null //=>false
!!"" //=>false
!!0 //=>false

Using “+StringValue” as an Alternative to parseInt

JavaScript has a built-in function called parseInt which takes a string value and converts it into a number. You can do something similar with type coercion using the plus operator.

typeof +'1234' //prints "number"

Wrap Up

This post showed just a couple examples on how to leverage the power of type coercion in JavaScript; there are many more. It is important to remember that just because type information is not visible within your JavaScript code that does not mean types don’t exist.

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