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Cover image for JavaScript Struggles - Part 3 | String Auto Converting

JavaScript Struggles - Part 3 | String Auto Converting

One of the weirdest things that JS do is converting string variable to numbers by itself.

When does it convert string to number?

We have 4 operators that can turn the string to number when the string value is numbers:


Plus (+)

In JavaScript the plus operator have two cases.

1- When you use the + with a string that only have numbers it'll be converted automatically to number.

console.log('1'+'2'); // Outputs: 3
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2- When you use the + with a string that contains text, it'll not be converted to number; it'll be added to the text.

console.log("Hey"+"There"); // Outputs: HeyThere
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Minus (-)

Whenever we use - in our code the string automatically get converted to number.

E.g.

console.log('5' - 1); // Outputs: 4
console.log('5' - '2'); // Outputs: 3
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Multiply (*)

Whenever we use * in our code the string automatically get converted to number.

console.log('5' * 3); // Outputs: 15
console.log('5' * '2'); // Outputs: 10
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Divide (/)

Whenever we use / in our code the string automatically get converted to number.

console.log('6' / 2); // Outputs: 3
console.log('9' / '3'); // Outputs: 3
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Thanks for reading! 😁

Top comments (4)

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tourmaline profile image
Tourmaline

Thanks for the post! There are also the circumstances when the -, * and / operators are used with strings that are not numbers like -'string'; or 'string' * '5'; and they just evaluate to NaN.

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abdelrahman_dwedar profile image
‘Abdelraḥman Dwedar 👨🏻‍💻🇵🇸

Glad you liked it! 😊

I'm happy you noticed that, actually I said earlier that if you converted a string that contains text it'll be NaN in the pervious part .

Have a nice day

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tourmaline profile image
Tourmaline

Thanks for the quick answer, I will check the rest of the parts of this series since it has interesting information.

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abdelrahman_dwedar profile image
‘Abdelraḥman Dwedar 👨🏻‍💻🇵🇸

Thanks for reading, I hope you liked them. 👍