How to Check if a Variable is String in Javascript
In this tutorial, you will learn how to check if a variable is string in javascript. There are certain primitive types in javascript and string is one of them. As the name suggests, any variable that holds a plain text as its value is considered to be of string type.
As you already know, javascript is a weakly typed language so there is no guarantee that the data type of a certain variable going to remain the same through its lifecycle. This makes it more important to learn how you can verify if a variable is holding a string before you even start accessing it.
To detect whether a variable is of type string or not, we can make use of typeof and ternary (?) operators. The typeof operator returns the type of the variable.
In the following example, we have one global variable and upon click of a button, we will check whether it is of string type or not and display the result on the screen. Please have a look over the code example and the steps given below.
HTML & CSS
- We have 3 elements in the HTML file (
div,button, andh1). Thedivelement is just a wrapper for the rest of the elements. - The
innerTextfor thebuttonelement is“Check”and for theh1element, it is“Result”. - We have done some basic styling using CSS and added the link to our
style.cssstylesheet inside theheadelement. - We have also included our javascript file
script.jswith ascripttag at the bottom.
<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
<head>
<meta charset="UTF-8">
<meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">
<meta http-equiv="X-UA-Compatible" content="ie=edge">
<link rel="stylesheet" href="style.css">
<title>Document</title>
</head>
<body>
<div class="container">
<button>Check</button>
<h1>Result</h1>
</div>
<script src="script.js"></script>
</body>
</html>
.container {
text-align: center;
}
button {
margin-top: 10px;
padding: 10px 20px;
}
Javascript
- We have selected the
buttonelement andh1element using thedocument.querySelector()method and stored them inbtnCheckandoutputvariables respectively. - We have attached a
clickevent listener to thebuttonelement. - We have a global variable
myVariablewhich holds“Hello World”string as its value. - In the event handler function, we are using
typeofand ternary (?) operators to verify whethermyVariableis of type string or not. Depending upon the result of the check, we will assign“Yes”or“No”to theresultvariable. - We are displaying the
resultin theh1element using theinnerTextproperty.
let btnCheck = document.querySelector("button");
let output = document.querySelector("h1");
let myVariable = "Hello World";
btnCheck.addEventListener("click", () => {
let result = typeof myVariable === "string" ? "Yes" : "No";
output.innerText = result;
});
