What is the not not operator in JavaScript

Question

I saw some code that seems to use an operator I don't recognize, in the form of two exclamation points, like so: !!. Can someone please tell me what this operator does?

The context in which I saw this was,

this.vertical = vertical !== undefined ? !!vertical : this.vertical;

Answer 1

It's a horribly obscure way to do a type conversion.

! means NOT. So !true is false, and !false is true. !0 is true, and !1 is false.

So you're converting a value to a boolean, then inverting it, then inverting it again.

// Maximum Obscurity:
val.enabled = !!userId;

// Partial Obscurity:
val.enabled = (userId != 0) ? true : false;

// And finally, much easier to understand:
val.enabled = (userId != 0);

// Or just
val.enabled = Boolean(userId);

Note: the latter two expressions aren't exactly equivalent to the first expression when it comes to some edge case (when userId is [], for example), due to the way the != operator works and what values are considered truthy.