What does plus operator mean in Underscore.js?

Question

While I was seeing Underscore.js (version 1.4.3) code, I saw following lines (79 line)

   if (obj.length === +obj.length) {
        for (var i = 0, l = obj.length; i < l; i++) {
            if (iterator.call(context, obj[i], i, obj) === breaker) return;
        }
    }

I didn't understand why + operator used within if statement. (+obj.length)
And, isn't it this statement always true?
I don't think it's a typo. There must be some aim to use that. If anyone knows benefits of this usage, I want to use it in future.
Thanks.

possible duplicate of [What does = +\_ mean in JavaScript](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15129137/what-does-mean-in-javascript) — Quentin, Mar 07 '13 at 12:14

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 07 '13 at 12:10

obj.length might be any type - such as undefined. +obj.length is always a number.

So the code basically checks if the length property exists and is a number. The reason for this check is that _.each() accepts both arrays and non-array objects. In case of an array the length property is necessary to iterate over its elements while a for..in loop is the way to go in case of a non-array object.

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 07 '13 at 12:08

1

The plus operator converts a value to Number.

Basically, a === +a makes sure a is a number and not a string.

answered Mar 07 '13 at 12:08

Tetaxa

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score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 07 '13 at 12:13

1

It converts a value to a number. I found this article helpful:

http://www.2ality.com/2012/01/object-plus-object.html

Cheers! :)

answered Mar 07 '13 at 12:13

Erik Kinding

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score 1 · Answer 4 · answered Mar 07 '13 at 12:20

The unary + operator results in the numeric equivalent of its operand, and NaN if the operand cannot be converted to a number.

It's one of a number of little "tricks" that exist in Javascript:

!!foo - converts foo to a boolean
~~foo - converts foo to a 32-bit signed integer

What does plus operator mean in Underscore.js?

4 Answers4

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