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JavaScript Quiz

Sai gowtham on July 04, 2018

I will post some questions in JavaScript from today onwards share your own solutions without running these code on your console.

  1. null === undefined

  2. null == undefined

  3. 2+"4"

  4. 2-"3"

  5. ""+2

  6. +"2"

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eljayadobe profile image
Eljay-Adobe •

One of my favorite web-slinger questions (for fun, not for job interviews) is: can you name all 8 of the falsy things?

Here's the first falsy thing, to get you started, which is pretty much a gimme:

  • false
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caseywebb profile image
Casey Webb • • Edited 
false
null
0
undefined
""
NaN

I'm out. What are the last 2?

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joshcheek profile image
Josh Cheek •

Shoutout! I didn't get NaN

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kenbellows profile image
Ken Bellows •

-NaN and -0

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eljayadobe profile image
Eljay-Adobe •

Here they all are. I realize that two of them will bring out the angry mob with their torches and pitchforks. But my disclaimer is that I did not write the language.

First the easy 6 falsy things:

  • false
  • 0
  • ""
  • undefined
  • null
  • NaN

Plus the final two falsy things, the second of which being an HTML-ism (part of the HTML specification):

  • -0
  • document.all
 
caseywebb profile image
Casey Webb • • Edited

I can't think of any case where those would be falsy. What exactly did you experiment with that made it appear that way?

Sanity check...

node -e "if (({})) console.log('truthy')" // requires wrapper to not interpret as block
node -e "if ([]) console.log('truthy')"

Logs truthy twice

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itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla) •

Without looking:

'1. null === undefined: ' + false;
'2. null == undefined: ' + true;
'3. 2+"4": ' + '24';
'4. 2-"3": ' + -1;
'5. ""+2: ' + '2';
'6. +"2": ' + 2;

I love these! I even have a codepen that's kind of like this

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itsasine profile image
ItsASine (Kayla) •

Right answers

Oh, yeah, I know my weird Javascript math 🎉

1 and 2 I know because of work since null and undefined can be a pain when testing.

3 is string concatination with 2 being made a string to make it magically work.

4 is making the string a number to make the math operator magically work.

5 is similar to 3 in that it's concatinating an (empty) string with a number that magically becomes a string.

6 is fun because + is the shorthand for type converting to an int.

 
fargrim profile image
Kyle Blake •

Unless I'm missing some trickery in the original comment, [] and {} are truthy values in JavaScript.

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kayis profile image
K •

Got 3. and 5. wrong, haha.

I supposed that the first operand would decide which implementation of + would be used, but I guess the rule is: string wins :D

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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kayis profile image
K •

Both convert the number to string and do a string concatination, even in one the number is the first operand and in the other the string is the first operand.

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Sloan, the sloth mascot
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kayis profile image
K •

Ah, yes.

I was talking about 3 and 5 :D

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sait profile image
Sai gowtham •

Oh i thought it was 5 and 6.
yeah 3 and 5 are Strings😁

 
joshcheek profile image
Josh Cheek •

You have to wrap it in parens b/c JS treats toplevel curlies as a "block" rather than an object. But, of course, if you begin a line with parens, then it will become a function call on the previous line, if one exists, so for sanity's sake, begin any paren line with a semicolon (same for brackets).

Personally, I think it's really iffy to say that {} and [] are falsy values. I've always understood "falsy" to mean you can drop it into a conditional and it will behave like false would have:

$ node -p ';[false, null, undefined, 0, NaN, "", [], {}].map(v => [v?"X":"√︎",v])'
[ [ '√︎', false ],
  [ '√︎', null ],
  [ '√︎', undefined ],
  [ '√︎', 0 ],
  [ '√︎', NaN ],
  [ '√︎', '' ],
  [ 'X', [] ],
  [ 'X', {} ] ]
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kauresss profile image
Kauress •
  1. false [checking for type of data and value of data]
  2. true [because both are of the same type i.e. falsy]
  3. "24" [ coercion rules, concatenation takes place because of + operator]
  4. -1 [ -1, subtraction takes place as - operator is used on numbers not on strings]
  5. "2" [ again string concatenation}
  6. Not sure, tell us!
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seye profile image
˗ˏˋ Seye Kuyinuˊˎ˗‏ •

6 uses + as a short form for type conversion

 
caseywebb profile image
Casey Webb • • Edited

Oddly, node -e "if ([] == false) console.log('truthy')" logs truthy, but node -e "if ({} == false) console.log('truthy')" doesn't.

Oh Javascript...

The moral of the story: always use ===.

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joshcheek profile image
Josh Cheek •

I scored 4 out of 6. But if I wasn't able to run them as I went, it would be much lower.

Also, I feel like you should add "2"+4 right after 2+"4", b/c I was definitely wondering if the casting decision was based on which one was first. Eg in Ruby, + is a method call, so 2+"4" would be calling Integer#+ and "2"+4 would be calling String#+, thus the ordering implies different behaviour, even though + in math is commutative. I know that's not how JS works, but it means that I would at least be entertaining the possibility of non-commutativity.

null === undefined
// expected: false
// actual:   false
// score:    1/1

null == undefined
// expected: false... but less confidently :/
// actual:   true
// score:    1/2

2+"4"
// expected: Jesus >.< uhm... 6? If not 6, than 24, pretty sure
//           one of them gets cast, just not sure which.
// actual:   fuuuuuuck, 24 >.<
// score:    1/3

2-"3"
// expected: Based on the above, I'm really hoping it's -1
// actual:   -1
// score:    2/4

""+2
// expected: Oh fuck. uhhhh. maybe it comes in as zero, or maybe
//           it gets treated like a character string instead of
//           a number string, which maybe casts the 2 to a string
//           ...wait, yeah, it's definitely "2"!
// actual:   "2"
// score:    3/5

+"2"
// expected: Probably 2, right? I'd expect it to cast the "2" to
//           a number and then make it "positive" or something.
// actual:   2
// score:    4/6
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shreyasminocha profile image
Shreyas Minocha • • Edited
  1. false
  2. true
  3. "24"
  4. -1
  5. "2"
  6. true

Not sure about some of these.

Edit: Got five right!

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andreandyp profile image
André Michel Andy •

Before running these statements:

false
true
24
-1
NaN
2

After running them

false
true
24
-1
"2"
2

4/6 😅

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johndemian profile image
John Demian •

Uhhh I love these!

I've got one for you!

Without running this in the console let me know how much is

0.1 + 0.2

Hint: it's a number bigger than the one you are thinking of right now.

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brunojennrich profile image
bruno jennrich •

0.30000000000000004

but this would happen on any IEEE floating point machine

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sudiukil profile image
Quentin Sonrel • • Edited
  1. false
  2. true
  3. "24"
  4. -1
  5. "2"
  6. 2

Looking forward for the next questions 😀

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learosema profile image
Lea Rosema (she/her) •

I guess :)

1. false
2. true
3. "24"
4. -1
5. "2"
6. 2
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isabolic99 profile image
isabolic99 •
  1. false
  2. true
  3. "42"
  4. -1
  5. "2"
  6. 2
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isabolic99 profile image
isabolic99 •

got 6 wrong

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antoine_m profile image
Antoine Mesnil •

false
true
"24"
-1
"2"
error ?

Tested it, only have one wrong

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sait profile image
Sai gowtham •

good try

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barthclem profile image
Oyeyemi Clement •
  1. False
  2. True
  3. "24"
  4. 1
  5. 2
  6. "2"

Well, let me run to my console to confirm that I know this nice language with weird behavior

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sait profile image
Sai gowtham •

sure....

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antogarand profile image
Antony Garand • • Edited

Syntax error on 3 and 4, beware of trailing periods!

Edit: OP removed the trailing periods!

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rezwanhossain profile image
Rezwan Hossain •
  1. false
  2. true(sure)
  3. "24." (not sure)
  4. "-1." (maybe)
  5. "2" (sure)
  6. ????
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crazylxr profile image
lxr •

false
true
string:24
number:-1
string:2
number:2

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0x04 profile image
Oliver Kühn • • Edited

In the past I collected some strange behaviour of JavaScript:

github.com/bullgit/WAT/blob/master...

:-)

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jjjjcccjjf profile image
ｅｎｄａｎ •
  1. false
  2. true
  3. "24"
  5. "2"
  6. "2"

??? Just a guess

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val_baca profile image
Valentin Baca •

Got 3 and 6 wrong. Neat quiz!

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fouzelddin profile image
Fouzeddin •

false
true
6
-1
"2"
2

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luigi_leano profile image
Luis Uriel Leaño •
  1. false
  2. true
  3. 24
  4. NaN
  5. 2
  6. 2