The optional chaining operator is a new feature coming in the next ECMAScript standard.
It’s still not official, but available in Chrome 80 behind a flag.
Have you ever used the && operator as a fallback? It’s 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 don’t 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 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:
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)
You can use this syntax today using this Babel plugin.
Download my free JavaScript Beginner's Handbook!
