# JavaScript Optional Chaining

> The optional chaining operator is a very useful operator which we can use to work with objects and their properties or methods

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2019-11-09 | Updated: 2021-10-12 | Topics: [JavaScript](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/js/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/javascript-optional-chaining/

The **optional chaining operator** is a very useful operator which we can use to work with objects and their properties or methods.

Have you ever used the && operator as a fallback? It's one of my favorite [JavaScript](https://flaviocopes.com/javascript/) features.

In JavaScript, you can first check if an object exists, and then try to get one of its properties, like this:

```js
const car = null
const color = car && car.color
```

Even if `car` is null, you don't have errors and `color` is assigned the `null` value.

You can go down multiple levels:

```js
const car = {}
const colorName = car && car.color && car.color.name
```

In some other languages, using `&&` might give you true or false, since it's usually a logic operator.

Not in JavaScript, and it allows us to do some cool things.

Now this new optional chaining operator will let us be even more fancy:

```js
const color = car?.color
const colorName = car?.color?.name
```

If `car` is `null` or `undefined`, the result will be `undefined`.

With no errors (while with && in case `car` was `undefined` we had a `ReferenceError: car is not defined` error)