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Better way to get type of a Javascript variable? - Stack Overflow

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Better way to get type of a Javascript variable?

Is there a better way to get the type of a variable in JS than t y p e o f? It works fine when you do: >t y p e o f1 " n u m b e r " >t y p e o f" h e l l o " " s t r i n g " But it's useless when you try: >t y p e o f[ 1 , 2 ] " o b j e c t " > r=n e wR e g E x p ( / . / ) / . / >t y p e o fr " f u n c t i o n " I know of i n s t a n c e o f, but this requires you to know the type beforehand. >[ 1 , 2 ]i n s t a n c e o fA r r a y t r u e >ri n s t a n c e o fR e g E x p t r u e Is there a better way?
javascript types typeof

asked Sep 12 '11 at 15:39 Aillyn 4,939 2 24 56 FYI, the t y p e o fn e wR e g E x p ( / . / ) ;/ /" f u n c t i o n " issue in Chrome appears to be fixed in Chrome 14. user113716 Sep 12 '11 at 18:36 possible duplicate of How do I get the name of an object's type in JavaScript? Aillyn Sep 12 '11 at 18:45 add comment

6 Answers
Angus Croll recently wrote an interesting blog post about this http://javascriptweblog.wordpress.com/2011/08/08/fixing-the-javascript-typeof-operator/ He goes through the pros and cons of the various methods then defines a new method 'toType' v a rt o T y p e=f u n c t i o n ( o b j ){ r e t u r n( { } ) . t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( o b j ) . m a t c h ( / \ s ( [ a z A Z ] + ) / ) [ 1 ] . t o L o w e r C a s e ( ) }
answered Sep 12 '11 at 15:53 ipr101

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ipr101 14.1k 2 21 39

Better way to get type of a Javascript variable? - Stack Overflow

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Interesting side note here - this could potentially break where a "host" object is passed to the function. Internet Explorer A c t i v e X O b j e c t instances, for example. Andy E Sep 12 '11 at 16:04 Really tricky... CDT Apr 29 at 8:39 If you created your own object type (prototypal inheritance), how could you get it to return a more specific value than "object"? This was also raised as an issue here, but was never addressed. EleventyOne Jul 27 at 19:30

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A reasonably good type capture function is the one used by YUI3:

v a rT Y P E S={ ' u n d e f i n e d ' :' u n d e f i n e d ' , ' n u m b e r ' :' n u m b e r ' , ' b o o l e a n ' :' b o o l e a n ' , ' s t r i n g ' :' s t r i n g ' , ' [ o b j e c tF u n c t i o n ] ' :' f u n c t i o n ' , ' [ o b j e c tR e g E x p ] ' :' r e g e x p ' , ' [ o b j e c tA r r a y ] ' :' a r r a y ' , ' [ o b j e c tD a t e ] ' :' d a t e ' , ' [ o b j e c tE r r o r ] ' :' e r r o r ' } , T O S T R I N G=O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g ; f u n c t i o nt y p e ( o ){ r e t u r nT Y P E S [ t y p e o fo ]| |T Y P E S [ T O S T R I N G . c a l l ( o ) ]| |( o?' o b j e c t ':' n u l l ' ) ; } ; This captures many of the primitives provided by javascript, but you can always add more by modifying the T Y P E S object. Note that t y p e o fH T M L E l e m e n t C o l l e c t i o n in Safari will report f u n c t i o n, but type(HTMLElementCollection) will return o b j e c t
answered Sep 12 '11 at 15:49 Nick Husher 1,118 2 10 add comment

You can try using c o n s t r u c t o r . n a m e. [ ] . c o n s t r u c t o r . n a m e n e wR e g E x p ( ) . c o n s t r u c t o r . n a m e As with everything JavaScript, someone will eventually invariably point that this is somehow evil, so here is a link to an answer that covers this pretty well. An alternative is to use O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g . c a l l O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( [ ] ) O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( / . / )
edited Sep 12 '11 at 15:46 answered Sep 12 '11 at 15:41 Xeon06 14.7k 1 30 76

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n a m e is an extension to ECMAScript and will not work in all browsers. Andy E Sep 12 '11 at 15:43

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Also we can change a little example from ipr101 O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o T y p e=f u n c t i o n ( ){ r e t u r n( { } ) . t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( t h i s ) . m a t c h ( / \ s ( [ a z A Z ] + ) / ) [ 1 ] . t o L o w e r C a s e ( ) } and call as " a a a " . t o T y p e ( ) ;/ /' s t r i n g '
answered Nov 8 '12 at 13:52 greymaster 41 1 add comment

You can apply O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g to any object: v a rt o S t r i n g=O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g ; c o n s o l e . l o g ( t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( [ ] ) ) ; / / >[ o b j e c tA r r a y ] c o n s o l e . l o g ( t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( / r e g / g ) ) ; / / >[ o b j e c tR e g E x p ] c o n s o l e . l o g ( t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( { } ) ) ; / / >[ o b j e c tO b j e c t ] This works well in all browsers, with the exception of IE - when calling this on a variable obtained from another window it will just spit out [ o b j e c tO b j e c t ].
answered Sep 12 '11 at 15:46 Andy E 112k 19 212 266

11 I wish IE would just die. Xeon06 Sep 12 '11 at 15:50 1 2 1

@Xeon I think the hatred against IE is a bit too much. IE9 is a much better browser than its predecessors. Aillyn Sep 12 '11 at 15:58 @pessimopoppotamus but nobody who would update their browser to IE9 uses IE. Xeon06 Sep 12 '11 at 16:01 IE 9 is a step in the right direction, IE 10 is looking pretty good. Incidentally, the bug I mentioned was a regression in IE 9 - they fixed it in IE 8. Andy E Sep 12 '11 at 16:05

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one line function :

f u n c t i o nt y p e ( v a l ) { O b j e c t . p r o t o t y p e . t o S t r i n g . c a l l ( v a l ) . r e p l a c e ( / ^ \ [ o b j e c t( . + ) \ ] $ / , " $ 1 " ) . t o L o w e r C a s e ( ) ; } this give the same result as j Q u e r y . t y p e ( )

edited Jan 2 at 14:30 answered Oct 31 '12 at 16:57 Yukull 611 2 10

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