Hacks in ES5

optional function arguments and their replacement, limitations of ES5 shortcuts

In some cases, function arguments are optional. For instance, let’s check the following code:

function addCalendarEntry( event, date, len, timeout ) {
    date = typeof date === 'undefined' ? new Date().getTime() : date;
    len = typeof len === 'undefined' ? 60 : len;
    timeout = typeof timeout === 'undefined' ? 1000 : timeout;
    // ...
}
addCalendarEntry( 'meeting' );

Three arguments of addCalendarEntry are optional.

A popular shorthand for optional parameters in ES5 uses the || (logical or) operator. You can make use of the shortcuts for logical operations.

function addCalendarEntry( event, date, len, timeout ) {
    date = date || new Date().getTime();
    len = len || 60;
    timeout = timeout || 1000;
    // ...
}
addCalendarEntry( 'meeting' );

The value value || defaultValue is value, whenever value is true. If the first operand of a || expression is true, the second operand is not even evaluated. This phenomenon is called a logical shortcut.

When value is false, value || defaultValue becomes defaultValue.

While this approach looks nice on paper, shortcuts are sometimes not flexible enough. All false values are treated in the same way, including 0, '', false. Sometimes, we may want to treat a 0 differently than an undefined indicating the absence of a value.