Logical Assignment Operators

By  on  

I love JavaScript, it's my favorite programming language, but I love dipping into other languages because they offer a new perspective on coding paradigms. There've been syntax additions to JavaScript that I've seen I found interesting (think ?? in optional chaining) and now we get more -- logical assignment operators. Let's check out how they can be used!

||=

Or-Or-Equals is used to assign a value when one doesn't exist:

let name;
const defaultName = "Guest";

name ||= defaultName;
// name >> "Guest"

// Equivalent: name || (name = defaultName);

??=

Question-Question-Equals assigns value when the value is undefined:

const j = 1;
j??= 10
// j >> 1

x = undefined;
x ??= 10
// x >> 10

&&=

And-And-Equals assigns value to the last in line when both are defined:

let name;
const defaultName = "Guest";

name &&= defaultName;
name >> undefined

// Both have values
let name = "David";
const defaultName = "Guest";

name &&= defaultName;
// name >> "Guest"

// Equivalent: name && (name = defaultName);

I do worry, at least in the short term, that this new syntax could be hard to maintain, but just like every other new language feature, we'll get used to it!

Recent Features

  • By
    Page Visibility API

    One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?

  • By
    LightFace:  Facebook Lightbox for MooTools

    One of the web components I've always loved has been Facebook's modal dialog.  This "lightbox" isn't like others:  no dark overlay, no obnoxious animating to size, and it doesn't try to do "too much."  With Facebook's dialog in mind, I've created LightFace:  a Facebook lightbox...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    CSS Custom Cursors

    Remember the Web 1.0 days where you had to customize your site in every way possible?  You abused the scrollbars in Internet Explorer, of course, but the most popular external service I can remember was CometCursor.  CometCursor let you create and use loads of custom cursors for...

  • By
    Submit Button Enabling

    "Enabling" you ask? Yes. We all know how to disable the submit upon form submission and the reasons for doing so, but what about re-enabling the submit button after an allotted amount of time. After all, what if the user presses the "stop"...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!