JavaScript can do that? - Javascript is slowly conquering the world. It started as the language of the browser and then grew and mutated. It is now one of the most dominant programming languages on the planet.
In this post I will go through some of the funniest yet unbelievable JavaScript snippets ever. Are you ready?
[] is equal ![]
Array is equal to not array
;[] == ![] // -> true
👉** What’s happening?**
The abstract equality operator converts both sides to numbers before comparing them, and both sides will be converted to 0 for different reasons. Arrays are truthy, so the right hand side becomes false which then is coerced to 0. On the left however, the empty array is coerced to a number without becoming a boolean first, and empty arrays are coerced to 0, despite being truthy .
true is false
True is false:
!!'false' == !!'true' // -> true
!!'false' === !!'true' // -> true
👉** What’s happening?**
true is truthy and is represented by value 1 (number), true in string form, is NaN. So:
true == 'true' // -> false
false == 'false' // -> false
false is not the empty string, so it’s a truthy value, so:
!!'false' // -> true
!!'true' // -> true
Cool, ha?
baNaNa
Let’s create a banana:
'b' + 'a' + +'a' + 'a' // -> baNaNa
👉** What’s happening?**
This one is an old trick, remixed. The expression is converted to "ba" + (+"a") + "a", and since "a" is converted to a number, it becomes NaN.
Let’s fail
You wouldn’t believe this in your wildest dreams, but:
;(![] + [])[+[]] +
(![] + [])[+!+[]] +
([![]] + [][[]])[+!+[] + [+[]]] +
(![] + [])[!+[] + !+[]]
// -> 'fail'
👉** What’s happening?**
If we break this lot into smaller pieces, we notice that the following pattern occurs often:
![] + [] // -> 'false'
![] // -> false
We try adding [] to false, but because of a number of function calls internally, we’ll end up converting the right operand into a string:
![] + [].toString() // -> 'false'
Thinking of a string as an array we can access its first character via [0]:
'false'[0] // -> 'f'
The rest is obvious, but the i is tricky. The i in fail is grabbed by generating the string falseundefined and taking the element on index ['10'].
Array equality is evil
Array equality is evil in JavaScript, see below:
[] == '' // -> true
[] == 0 // -> true
[''] == '' // -> true
[0] == 0 // -> true
[0] == '' // -> false
[''] == 0 // -> true
[null] == '' // true
[null] == 0 // true
[undefined] == '' // true
[undefined] == 0 // true
[[]] == 0 // true
[[]] == '' // true
[[[[[[]]]]]] == '' // true
[[[[[[]]]]]] == 0 // true
[[[[[[ null ]]]]]] == 0 // true
[[[[[[ null ]]]]]] == '' // true
[[[[[[ undefined ]]]]]] == 0 // true
[[[[[[ undefined ]]]]]] == '' // true
👉** What’s happening?**
The explanation behind this is rather long. So I introduce you to section 7.2.13 Abstract Equality Comparison of the specification.
parseInt is just bad
parseInt is famous by its quirks, I just mention one of the most famous ones:
parseInt('f**k') // -> NaN
parseInt('f**k', 16) // -> 15
👉** What’s happening?**
This happens because parseInt will continue parsing character by character until it hits one it doesn’t know. The f in f**k is the hexadecimal digit 15.
NaN is not a number
Type of NaN is a number:
typeof NaN // -> 'number'
👉** What’s happening?**
Explanations of how typeof and instanceof operators work:
- 12.5.5 The
[typeof](https://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/#sec-typeof-operator "typeof")Operator - 12.10.4 Runtime Semantics:
[InstanceofOperator(O,C)](https://www.ecma-international.org/ecma-262/#sec-instanceofoperator "InstanceofOperator(O,C)")
Comparison of three numbers
This one is gold:
1 true
3 > 2 > 1 // -> false
👉** What’s happening?**
Why does this work that way? Well, the problem is in the first part of an expression. Here’s how it works:
1 true
true 1
1 true
3 > 2 > 1 // 3 > 2 -> true
true > 1 // true -> 1
1 > 1 // -> false
You can fix this with greater than or equal operator (>=):
3 > 2 >= 1 // true
Read more about Relational operators in the specification:
And that’s just some of the fun we can have with JavaScript. No wonder some people do not like it, since they don’t understand how it works
#javascript
