Hey Coders! Simplify Your Code with the Nullish Coalescing Operator (??) | by TM: Thee Soontornsing

Attention, freshman coders! If you’ve grappled with the logical OR operator (||) in JavaScript, you might find yourself puzzled when dealing with null and undefined values. This is where the nullish coalescing operator (??) comes into play like a true coding hero!

Imagine needing to display a user’s name, stored in a variable called userName. If the user hasn’t signed up, the value could be null.

• Using the OR operator: const displayName = userName || "Guest"; – assigns “Guest” if userName is falsy.
• However, this approach treats other falsy values like 0 or an empty string as “undefined.”

The nullish coalescing operator addresses this issue:

const displayName = userName ?? "Guest";

This only assigns “Guest” if userName is null or undefined, allowing other values to come through.

Curious about more clever uses of the nullish coalescing operator? From setting default values to accessing nested properties safely, there’s so much more to explore!