Updated Oct 12 2021
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? Itβs one of my favorite JavaScript features.
In JavaScript, you can first check if an object exists, and then try to get one of its properties, like this:
const car = null
const color = car && car.color
Even if car
is null, you donβt have errors and color
is assigned the null
value.
You can go down multiple levels:
const car = {}
const colorName = car && car.color && car.color.name
In some other languages, using &&
might give you true or false, since itβs 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:
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)
I wrote an entire book on this topic π
I also got a super cool course π
© 2023 Flavio Copes
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