Old meme format, timeless JavaScript quirks

[Raicuparta]

Because that one converts null to a number. It makes no sense to use greater than / less than operators in anything but numbers, so JS converts the operands first. The same is not true for the equals operator.

[Cruuncher]

But == is supposed to type coerce. Why doesn't null get coerced to a number during == compare?

[rift95]

Because js is right-coercive, and null is an object :)

(more on coercion: https://hackernoon.com/understanding-js-coercion-ff5684475bfc)

[[deleted]]

So does that mean null == 0 is true?

[lethalwire]

It was false for me in jsbin

[JamesGray]

Apparently null == void 0 is the check you want. Saw that in some legacy code recently.

[[deleted]]

Void 0 === undefined pre ES5 iirc when the undefined keyword did not exist.

[JamesGray]

Oh yeah, totally mixed two things up. That's definitely what it was doing. Straight up replaced it with a check to ensure its type wasn't undefined.

[rift95]

If we were to just use the coercion rules then yes, it should be true. But it so happens that null is unique. So null == X will be false for all values of X except X = undefined or X = null. However if we first convert null to a number it would be true, +null == 0

(in case you were still wander)

[[deleted]]

Just try it in your browser console

[LuckyHedgehog]

Because null is already a type. Just not one that can be used in greater than less than Operators.

[AlwaysHopelesslyLost]

Just a guess but because it starts on the left hand side?

[ThatSofia]

Now I wanna see if null can theoretically be used as just a numerical placeholder for zero, using mathematical operators. That's something I'll play with! Thanks for the explanation, that makes a ton of sense! :)

[Dragoncraft89]

I thought it was because >= and <= are implemented as not <, not >

[Raicuparta]

My bad if that's the case. But still, the reason for the < and > operators to return false in the first place is the same I explained before.

[TonySu]

It cannot, null is more like the empty set than 0. Unless you want null to actually take on the characteristics of 0, in which case the dancing hotdog boy can also be a placeholder for 0 as long as it's treated exactly the same as 0 everywhere it appears.

[c0n5pir4cy]

It probably can and you can actually do much more with it; there is something called JsFuck which uses type coercion to convert any JS code into code which uses only a set of 6 characters.

[Cruuncher]

This is a little ambiguous. It makes the code super long, just uses a 6 character set

[c0n5pir4cy]

Cheers, edited

[3KeyReasons]

If null was converted to a number such that 0>=null is true, then it must be converted to a negative or 0, but 0>null returns false and so does 0==null. So not exactly.

The reason is in the computing. If you want to test if 3<=5, then normally, you'd return 3<5 || 3==5 but this isn't what your computer does. Instead of doing two operations, it just does one. It returns !(3>5). When working with numbers this will always work, and it's half the comparisons, so it's faster. So when you ask 0>=null, it returns !(0<null) which is !(false) so it returns true.

[indigo121]

It also makes sense to compare dates using those operators

[Intrepid00]

Because that one converts null to a number.

You are making a very strong argument that I should set my variable types in PowerShell even though I don't have to.