JavaScript checking for null vs. undefined and difference between == and ===

Question

1. How do I check a variable if it\'s null or undefined and what is the difference between the null and undefined?<

Answer 1

The difference is subtle.

In JavaScript an undefined variable is a variable that as never been declared, or never assigned a value. Let's say you declare var a; for instance, then a will be undefined, because it was never assigned any value.

But if you then assign a = null; then a will now be null. In JavaScript null is an object (try typeof null in a JavaScript console if you don't believe me), which means that null is a value (in fact even undefined is a value).

Example:

var a;
typeof a;     # => "undefined"

a = null;
typeof null;  # => "object"

This can prove useful in function arguments. You may want to have a default value, but consider null to be acceptable. In which case you may do:

function doSomething(first, second, optional) {
    if (typeof optional === "undefined") {
        optional = "three";
    }
    // do something
}

If you omit the optional parameter doSomething(1, 2) thenoptional will be the "three" string but if you pass doSomething(1, 2, null) then optional will be null.

As for the equal == and strictly equal === comparators, the first one is weakly type, while strictly equal also checks for the type of values. That means that 0 == "0" will return true; while 0 === "0" will return false, because a number is not a string.

You may use those operators to check between undefined an null. For example:

null === null            # => true
undefined === undefined  # => true
undefined === null       # => false
undefined == null        # => true

The last case is interesting, because it allows you to check if a variable is either undefined or null and nothing else:

function test(val) {
    return val == null;
}
test(null);       # => true
test(undefined);  # => true