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patternjavascriptModerate

Check if JavaScript input is empty

Submitted by: @import:stackexchange-codereview··
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javascriptinputcheckempty

Problem

Having a general utility function to see if the input is empty makes sense to me. Empty means different things depends on the type. I just spent ~5 minutes writing this one up, so I'm sure it's missing edge cases, and maybe I'm approaching the whole problem incorrectly.

Function

function isEmpty(input: any) {
    switch (typeof input) {
        case 'string':
            return input.length === 0;
        case 'object':
            return (input instanceof Array)? input.length === 0: Object.getOwnPropertyNames(input).length === 0;
        case 'number':
        default:
            return input === undefined;
    }
}


Basic [SONA!] testing

let s = '';
let o = {};
let n: number;
let a = [];

console.log('isEmpty(s): ' + isEmpty(s));
console.log('isEmpty(o): ' + isEmpty(o));
console.log('isEmpty(n): ' + isEmpty(n));
console.log('isEmpty(a): ' + isEmpty(a));


I'm tempted to modify the object line to check if the length property is defined, rather than restricting to Arrays, but that's all I can think of offhand. Any other ideas on making this more general?

Solution

One edge case you're missing is how to handle null. isEmpty(null) will fail because Object.getOwnPropertyNames(null) will throw TypeError: can't convert null to object.

Also be aware that isEmpty(NaN) will return false, which may or may not be what you want.

Context

StackExchange Code Review Q#106591, answer score: 11

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