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Bulletproof type checks in JavaScript

Bulletproof type checks in JavaScript

Daniel Cobo's photo
Daniel Cobo
·

3 min read

Using typeof

To check what type is a variable you would most likely use the typeof function. You can even skip the parenthesis (typeof someVariable is same as typeof(someVariable)).

typeof works great for:

  • strings
  • numbers (not if checking integer vs. float)
  • big integers
  • symbols
  • functions
  • booleans
  • checking if a variable is undefined
typeof "hello"; //string

typeof 1; //number
typeof 0.1; //number

typeof 10000000000000000000000000n; //bigint

typeof Symbol("SomeSymbol"); //symbol

typeof true; //boolean
typeof false; //boolean

typeof function(){}; //function

typeof iamundefined //undefined

It kinda sucks if you need to check:

  • arrays
  • integer
  • floating number
  • null
  • NaN
  • regex
  • a date object
  • a custom object

👑 Keep calm and check the solutions below 👍

Check if a variable is an array

The use built-in .isArray method will return true/false if the value is an array. This is way better than the old school method of duck typing when you had to check if the variable is an object and has the .length property.

Array.isArray([]); // true

Check if a variable is an integer

The Number.isInteger method returns true if the variable is an integer.

Number.isInteger(1); //true
Number.isInteger(0.1); //false
Number.isInteger(1000000000000000000000n); //false
Number.isInteger(""); //false

Check if a variable is a floating number

It's a two step process:

  1. Check if the value is a numbe
  2. Check if the value is not an integer
// Solution
const isFloat = function isFloat(val){
  return (typeof val === 'number' && !Number.isInteger(val));
}

// Test
const floatNumber = 0.1;
console.log(isFloat(floatNumber)); //true

Check if a variable is null

Best way is to do a comparison.

const iamnull = null; 
const zero = 0;

iamnull === null; //true
zero === null; //false

Check if a variable is NaN

The Number.isNaN method returns true if the variable is an integer.

It's an improvement of the older isNaN function, since in that case you should also combine it with typeof check for number, otherwise something like isNaN(undefined) would also return true.

Number.isNaN(NaN); //true
Number.isNaN(undefined); //false

Check if a variable is a regular expression

To verify a variable is a regex simply check if it's an instance of the RegExp object.

/I am a regex/ instanceof RegExp //true
true instanceof RegExp //false

Check if a variable is a Date object

Similar to regex, for dates we can also check if the value is an instance of the Date object.

new Date() instanceof Date //true
true instanceof Date //false

Check if a variable is a custom object

typeof will return "object" not just for objects but also for things like arrays and null. Your best option is to combine typeof with elimination. 

const isObject = function isObject(val) {
  return (
    typeof val === 'object' &&
    !Array.isArray(val) &&
    val !== null &&
    val instanceof RegExp === false &&
    val instanceof Date === false
  );
};

You can adjust this based on what you want to qualify as an object, however the objects I would like to validate are non-builtin JavaScript objects aka. objects defined by the developer.

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