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Nuno Pereira
Nuno Pereira

Posted on • Updated on

Differences between "null" and "undefined" keywords?

They both represent a empty value.

Difference nr 1!

When you define a variable but not assign a value to it, it automatically puts a placeholder which is called undefined so you don't have do it manually, JavaScript does it for you.

Null means an empty or non-existent value.

Null is assigned, and explicitly means nothing. while undefined typically means a variable has been declared but not defined yet.

var a;
console.log(a);
// undefined

var b = null;
console.log(b);
// null

Difference nr 2!

Null and undefined are both primitives and falsy values. However null is also an object. Interestingly, this was actually an error in the original JavaScript implementation.

var a;
console.log(typeof(a));
// undefined

var b = null;
console.log(typeof(b));
// object

Difference nr 3!

As you can see so far, null and undefined are different, but share some similarities. Thus, it makes sense that null does not strictly equal undefined.

console.log(null !== undefined);
// true

But, and this may surprise you, null loosely equals undefined.

console.log(null == undefined);
// true

In JavaScript, a double equals tests for loose equality and preforms type coercion. This means we compare two values after converting them to a common type.

See you soon for more tips !

Top comments (9)

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jamesthomson profile image
James Thomson • Edited

Null and undefined are both primitives and falsy values. However null is also an object.

And this is why no one will ever fully understand JavaScript 😆

Even taken from MDN:

The value null represents the intentional absence of any object value. It is one of JavaScript's primitive values.

And when you click through to primitive values, MDN states:

In JavaScript, a primitive (primitive value, primitive data type) is data that is not an object and has no methods.

Yet, typeof null // object 🤔

What the what 🤯

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vlasales profile image
Vlastimil Pospichal • Edited
anna = {}
bill = {}

anna.age = null
bill.age = null
console.log(anna.age == bill.age)  // ???
console.log(anna.age === bill.age)  // ???

anna.age = NaN
bill.age = NaN
console.log(anna.age == bill.age)  // ???
console.log(anna.age === bill.age)  // ???
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emptyother profile image
emptyother

The new optional parameter for ES6 only cares about undefined.

function myFunc(a, b = 0) { console.log(a,b); }
myFunc(1); // 1 0
myFunc(1,null); // 1 null
myFunc(1,undefined); // 1 0
myFunc(1,getSomeNonExistingValue()); // 1 (null or 0)

Wouldn't it be simpler to use undefined instead of null everywhere? Just stop using null?

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alexparra profile image
Alex Parra

Yeah, this has tripped me a couple of times...

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_ezell_ profile image
Ezell Frazier

I like to think of undefined as the void personified.

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umezvictor profile image
Victor Umezuruike

Sometimes it can be really confusing. Thanks for the explanation

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nitinreddy3 profile image
Nitin Reddy

Yeah, JavaScript is a weird programming language but a nice one.

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nunocpnp profile image
Nuno Pereira

Indeed :)

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nunocpnp profile image
Nuno Pereira

Cool, thx for adding this up !