The typeof
operator provides information about the type of the operand before it is evaluated. It operates during execution time, meaning TypeScript is not involved at this stage. In JavaScript, arrays are considered objects, and there is no specific array type. For more details on JavaScript types, you can refer to mdn.
Arrays are primarily used in TypeScript for code validation during linting and compilation stages. You can determine if a variable 'someField' is an array during execution time using Array.isArray()
, as shown below:
console.log(Array.isArray(someField))
It's important to note that TypeScript has its own version of the typeof operator, which is distinct from the standard JavaScript implementation. This TypeScript-specific typeof operator is commonly used in defining types, like in the example below:
let s = "hello";
let n: typeof s;