Do null and undefined fall under other types as subcategories in Typescript?

As I was exploring some old code, I came across the following snippet:

let isNew: boolean = null
let myName: string = undefined

This snippet seems to indicate that in typescript, a variable of type boolean can accept null and a variable of type string can accept undefined.

Could this mean that null and undefined are considered subtypes of other types in typescript?

If I am mistaken, please correct me. Any suggestions or clarifications would be greatly appreciated!

Answer №1

If you open up a javascript console and type typeof(null) along with typeof(undefined), you'll see that TypeScript treats them the same way since ultimately TypeScript code is converted to javascript.

In TypeScript, null is considered a type of object, while undefined is classified as a type of undefined itself.

undefined is the value automatically assigned to any declared variable in javascript that has not been given a value. On the other hand, null is purposely assigned as a value, but it's also possible to assign a variable to undefined intentionally.

The code snippet you provided would likely result in errors when compiled by most configurations of the TypeScript compiler, depending on the settings in the tsconfig.json file. To declare a variable in TypeScript of type T that can be either null or undefined, where T represents another type (such as boolean or string), the variable must be defined accordingly using syntax like T|null or T|undefined. For example:

let isNew1: boolean = null; // results in an error
let isNew2: boolean|null = null; // no issues here
let isNew3: boolean|null; // error - cannot assign undefined

let myName1: string = undefined; // leads to an error
let myName2: string|undefined = undefined; // works fine
let myName3: string|undefined; // valid declaration

Additionally, you have the option to allow for undefined values in types and interfaces in TypeScript by utilizing the ? symbol (e.g., myVariable?: string).

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