Why is null an object and what's the difference between null and undefined?

Question

Why is null considered an object in JavaScript?

Is checking

if ( object == null )
      Do something

the

Answer 1

TLDR

undefined is a primitive value in JavaScript that indicates the implicit absence of a value. Uninitialized variables automatically have this value, and functions without an explicit return statement, return undefined.

null is also a primitive value in JavaScript. It indicates the intentional absence of an object value. null in JavaScript was designed to enable interoperability with Java.

typeof null returns "object" because of a peculiarity in the design of the language, stemming from the demand that JavaScript be interoperable with Java. It does not mean null is an instance of an object. It means: given the tree of primitive types in JavaScript, null is part of the "object-type primitive" subtree. This is explained more fully below.

Details

undefined is a primitive value that represents the implicit absence of a value. Note that undefined was not directly accessible until JavaScript 1.3 in 1998. This tells us that null was intended to be the value used by programmers when explicitly indicating the absence of a value. Uninitialized variables automatically have the value undefined. undefined is a one-of-a-kind type in the ECMAScript specification.

null is a primitive value that represents the intentional absence of an object value. null is also a one-of-a-kind type in the ECMAScript specification.

null in JavaScript was designed with a view to enable interoperability with Java, both from a "look" perspective, and from a programatic perspective (eg the LiveConnect Java/JS bridge planned for 1996). Both Brendan Eich and others have since expressed distaste at the inclusion of two "absence of value" values, but in 1995 Eich was under orders to "make [JavaScript] look like Java".

Brendan Eich:

If I didn't have "Make it look like Java" as an order from management, and I had more time (hard to unconfound these two causal factors), then I would have preferred a Self-like "everything's an object" approach: no Boolean, Number, String wrappers. No undefined and null. Sigh.

In order to accommodate Java's concept of null which, due to the strongly-typed nature of Java, can only be assigned to variables typed to a reference type (rather primitives), Eich chose to position the special null value at the top of the object prototype chain (ie. the top of the reference types), and to include the null type as part of the set of "object-type primitives".

The typeof operator was added shortly thereafter in JavaScript 1.1, released on 19th August 1996.

From the V8 blog:

typeof null returns object, and not null, despite null being a type of its own. To understand why, consider that the set of all JavaScript types is divided into two groups:

1. objects (i.e. the Object type)
2. primitives (i.e. any non-object value)

As such, null means “no object value”, whereas undefined means “no value”.

Following this line of thought, Brendan Eich designed JavaScript to make typeof return 'object' for all values on the right-hand side, i.e. all objects and null values, in the spirit of Java. That’s why typeof null === 'object' despite the spec having a separate null type.

So Eich designed the heirarchy of primitive types to enable interoperability with Java. This led to him positioning null along with the "object-type primitives" on the heirarchy. To refelct this, when typeof was added to the language shortly thereafter, he chose typeof null to return "object".

The surprise expressed by JavaScript developers at typeof null === "object" is the result of an impedance mismatch (or abstraction leak) between a weakly-typed language (JavaScript) that has both null and undefined, and another, strongly-typed language (Java) that only has null, and in which null is strictly defined to refer to a reference type (not a primitive type).

Note that this is all logical, reasonable and defensible. typeof null === "object" is not a bug, but a second-order effect of having to accommodate Java interoperability.

A number of imperfect backwards rationalisations and/or conventions have emerged, including that undefined indicates implicit absence of a value, and that null indicates intentional absence of a value; or that undefined is the absence of a value, and null is specifically the absence of an object value.

A relevant conversation with Brendan Eich, screenshotted for posterity: