How to Follow Along
It’s about to get weird — and you’re going to want to follow along with me. You can open up your Chrome Developer Console with: (Windows: Ctrl + Shift + J)(Mac: Cmd + Option + J). This will allow you to type all of the following code into your browser so you can see in real time what is happening…
3 + true == 4
I’m not kidding either. In JavaScript, when the plus operator is placed between a number and a boolean, the boolean is converted to a number.
If you know here false == 0 and true == 1. With this in mind, 3 + true is converted to 3 + 1 and thus we get the answer of 4.
true + false
This follows the same logic as the above example. When the plus operator is placed between two booleans, the booleans are converted to numbers. Thus, true + false is converted to 1 + 0 and we get an answer of 1.
‘4’ + 8
What happens when we add a string number to an actual number? When the plus operator is placed between to operands, and one is a string, it will convert the other number or boolean to a string and concatenate them.
By this logic: ‘4’ + 8 becomes ‘4’ + ‘8’ and we get an answer of ’48’.
true + ‘4’
Similar to the above example, JavaScript will convert the boolean into a string value and concatenate. This becomes ‘true’ + ‘4’ and the result is ‘true4’.
1 + 1 + ‘1’
Order of operations is important. In this instance, JavaScript evaluates the first + before anything else: 1 + 1 equals 2. Then we move on and add in the string value of ‘1’. Concatenation occurs and the result is ’21’.
Here’s the chain of events:
1 + 1 + '1' 2 + '1' '21'
‘1’ + 1 + 1
What changes when we have our string value first instead of last? Remember the order of operations and work from left to right:
'1' + 1 + 1 '11' + 1 '111'
string + number = string. So in this instance we’re left with one long string of ‘111’.
-‘69’ + 69
What if we attempt to negate a string and then add a number? As you should know by now, without the negation, our answer would be ‘6969’. However, the negation changes things.
The minus sign before ’69’ is a unary minus operator that will actually convert the string to a number and make it negative. Thus, our equation becomes -69 + 69 which equals 0.
-‘giddyup’ + 409
What if our unary minus operator is in front of a string that can’t be converted to a number? When JavaScript fails to produce a number, we are left with NaN (Not A Number).
You did it.
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Arif Khoja is a Developer. He is a Javascript Enthusiatic who loves logical programming and has first hand experience in building a cutting edge internet product using Angular. He is also an open source freak and keen about learning and sharing. He writes Javascript both frontend and backend. He loves learning and sharing tech all the time. He also has a hands on experience in SEO and writes articles about latest emerging technologies.
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