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5.10. Miscellaneous Operators

JavaScript supports a number of other miscellaneous operators, described in the following sections.

5.10.2. The typeof Operator

typeof is a unary operator that is placed before its single operand, which can be of any type. Its value is a string indicating the data type of the operand.

The typeof operator evaluates to "number", "string", or "boolean" if its operand is a number, string, or boolean value. It evaluates to "object" for objects, arrays, and (surprisingly) null. It evaluates to "function" for function operands and to "undefined" if the operand is undefined.

typeof evaluates to "object" when its operand is a Number, String, or Boolean wrapper object. It also evaluates to "object" for Date and RegExp objects. typeof evaluates to an implementation-dependent value for objects that are not part of core JavaScript but are provided by the context in which JavaScript is embedded. In client-side JavaScript, however, typeof typically evaluates to "object" for all client-side objects, just as it does for all core objects.

You might use the typeof operator in expressions like these:

typeof i
(typeof value == "string") ? "'" + value + "'" : value 

Note that you can place parentheses around the operand to typeof, which makes typeof look like the name of a function rather than an operator keyword:

typeof(i) 

Because typeof evaluates to "object" for all object and array types, it is useful only to distinguish objects from other, primitive types. In order to distinguish one object type from another, you must use other techniques, such as the instanceof operator or the constructor property (see the "Object.constructor" entry in the core reference section).

The typeof operator is defined by the ECMAScript v1 specification and is implemented in JavaScript 1.1 and later.

5.10.4. The delete Operator

delete is a unary operator that attempts to delete the object property, array element, or variable specified as its operand.[17] It returns true if the deletion was successful, and false if the operand could not be deleted. Not all variables and properties can be deleted: some built-in core and client-side properties are immune from deletion, and user-defined variables declared with the var statement cannot be deleted. If delete is invoked on a nonexistent property, it returns true. (Surprisingly, the ECMAScript standard specifies that delete also evaluates to true if the operand is not a property, array element, or variable.) Here are some examples of the use of this operator:

[17]If you are a C++ programmer, note that the delete operator in JavaScript is nothing like the delete operator in C++. In JavaScript, memory deallocation is handled automatically by garbage collection, and you never have to worry about explicitly freeing up memory. Thus, there is no need for a C++-style delete to delete entire objects.

var o = {x:1, y:2};  // Define a variable; initialize it to an object
delete o.x;          // Delete one of the object properties; returns true
typeof o.x;          // Property does not exist; returns "undefined"
delete o.x;          // Delete a nonexistent property; returns true
delete o;            // Can't delete a declared variable; returns false
delete 1;            // Can't delete an integer; returns true
x = 1;               // Implicitly declare a variable without var keyword
delete x;            // Can delete this kind of variable; returns true
x;                   // Runtime error: x is not defined

Note that a deleted property, variable, or array element is not merely set to the undefined value. When a property is deleted, the property ceases to exist. See the related discussion in Section 4.3.2.

delete is standardized by the ECMAScript v1 specification and implemented in JavaScript 1.2 and later. Note that the delete operator exists in JavaScript 1.0 and 1.1 but does not actually perform deletion in those versions of the language. Instead, it merely sets the specified property, variable, or array element to null.

It is important to understand that delete affects only properties, not objects referred to by those properties. Consider the following code:

var my = new Object( );    // Create an object named "my"
my.hire = new Date( );     // my.hire refers to a Date object
my.fire = my.hire;          // my.fire refers to the same object
delete my.hire;             // hire property is deleted; returns true
document.write(my.fire);    // But my.fire still refers to the Date object 

5.10.7. Array and Object Access Operators

As noted briefly in Chapter 3, you can access elements of an array using square brackets ([]), and you can access elements of an object using a dot (.). Both [] and . are treated as operators in JavaScript.

The . operator expects an object as its left operand and an identifier (a property name) as its right operand. The right operand should not be a string or a variable that contains a string; it should be the literal name of the property or method, without quotes of any kind. Here are some examples:

document.lastModified
navigator.appName
frames[0].length
document.write("hello world") 

If the specified property does not exist in the object, JavaScript does not issue an error, but instead simply returns undefined as the value of the expression.

Most operators allow arbitrary expressions for either operand, as long as the type of the operand is suitable. The . operator is an exception: the righthand operand must be an identifier. Nothing else is allowed.

The [] operator allows access to array elements. It also allows access to object properties without the restrictions that the . operator places on the righthand operand. If the first operand (which goes before the left bracket) refers to an array, the second operand (which goes between the brackets) should be an expression that evaluates to an integer. For example:

frames[1]
document.forms[i + j]
document.forms[i].elements[j++] 

If the first operand to the [] operator is a reference to an object, the second operand should be an expression that evaluates to a string that names a property of the object. Note that in this case, the second operand is a string, not an identifier. It should be a constant in quotes or a variable or expression that refers to a string. For example:

document["lastModified"]
frames[0]['length']
data["val" + i] 

The [] operator is typically used to access the elements of an array. It is less convenient than the . operator for accessing properties of an object because of the need to quote the name of the property. When an object is used as an associative array, however, and the property names are dynamically generated, the . operator cannot be used; only the [] operator will do. This is commonly the case when you use the for/in loop, which is introduced in Chapter 6. For example, the following JavaScript code uses a for/in loop and the [] operator to print out the names and values of all of the properties in an object o:

for (f in o) {
    document.write('o.' + f + ' = ' + o[f]);
    document.write('<br>');
} 


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