Types in Javascript

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  • #JavaScript

    • Types are fundamental pieces of the language. They are used to represent data, store it and manipulate it.

    JavaScript is a dynamically typed language which means that types are associated with values rather than variables.

    Once a variable is assigned a certain type of value, it can later be changed to a different type.

    JavaScript is also a weakly typed language. It implicitly casts types during operations if the operands are not of the same type.

    JavaScript has eight primitive types. They are:

    • Number
    • String
    • Boolean
    • Object
    • Undefined
    • Null
    • Symbol
    • BigInt

    Let’s take a look at each of them.

    Number

    Number was the only numeric type in JavaScript until very recently. The BigInt type was introduced to handle integers of arbitrary length.

    Positive numbers, negative numbers, integers and floats are all represented using the same Number type.

    They can represent integer values up to 253 (or -253 for negatives).

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    // integers
50
7645234
0xAA

// floats
0.135
1.53
1e9 // 100,000,0000

    Precision Problems

    Because of the way JavaScript handles numbers, you need to be careful of precision problems.

    It cannot store an infinite amount of precision.

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    1.0000000000000009 // works fine
1.00000000000000009 // becomes 1

    String

    String is generally used to represent textual data.

    They can be represented with ""(double quotes), ''(single quotes), or ``(backticks).

    The double and single quotes are the exact same.

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    let firstName = 'John';
let lastName = "Doe";

    Template Literals

    The backticks are called template literals. They allow us to interpolate javascript variables and expressions inside them using ${}. Anything inside the {} will be interpreted as a JavaScript expression.

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    let age = 18;
let name = 'John';
let message = `My name is ${name} and I'm ${age + 2} years old.`;

console.log(message); // My name is John and I'm 20 years old

    They can also be used to create multiline strings easily.

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    const string = `I am
writing
on
multiple
lines`

console.log(string)

    The above code outputs

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    I am
writing
on
multiple
lines

    Boolean

    Boolean are used to represent true or false values. Note that these are keywords reserved by the language and are not simply strings.

    Comparison operators such as ==, ===, > < return a Boolean.

    They can also be assigned to variables.

    Object

    An Object type is a collection of properties.

    The properties of an object is identified using keys which are either String or Symbol values.

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    const person = {
    name: 'John',
    age: '20',
    hasPet: true,
}

    Subtypes of Objects

    There are two subtypes of objects

    • Array
    • Function

    An Array is a an ordered collection of values.

    A Function is a way to define a set of instructions which can be used many times.

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    let petsArray = ['dog', 'cat', 'rabbit'];

function greet(name) {
    return `Hello, ${name}. How are you?`
}

console.log(greet("John")) // Hello, John, How are you?

    undefined

    undefined is used to assigned to variables that have been just been declared but haven’t been assigned any values

    null

    null represents the absence of a value or reference.

    Symbol

    The Symbol type is used as unique identifiers for Object keys.

    Every Symbol value is unique and immutable.

    BigInt

    The BigInt type was introduced to represent an arbitrary length of integers. The length of the integer is limited only by memory space.

    They are represented by appedning n to the end of an integer.

    They cannot be used with the number type.

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    const big = 25n;

big + 25 // TypeError: Cannot mix BigInt and other types, use explicit conversions

    See Also