Another surprisingly handy new feature proposal

myFunction(somePossiblyNullVariable || "my-default-value");

Does this look familiar?

Providing a default value for when input values are undefined is a very common scenario. Many developers tend to rely on the boolean OR-operator for this.

The problem

This doesn't work when one of the possible values in the left-hand side expression is a so-called falsy value:

""; // an empty string
0; // the number zero
false;

setAllowedRespawns(config.respawns || "3");

If parameters.respawns is zero, the statement would resolve to the default value, '3'. In fact, you would need a more complex construction to make zero a possible value of config.respawn:

setAllowedRespawns(config.respawns != null ? config.respawns : "3");

This doesn't read very well and is difficult to remember and type.

The solution

A new JavaScript operator called the "Nullish Coalescing Operator" proposes a new syntax for this:

setAllowedRespawns(parameters.respawns ?? "3");

If the left-hand side of the expression evaluates to undefined or null, the right-hand side of the expression is returned.

The big advantage over || is therefore that so-called "falsy" values are passed through as legal values from the left-hand side.

Woah! Can I use it?

This feature is currently in stage 1, but is of course available as a babel plugin.

Enjoy!