Discovering Typescript Operators

In this post, we’ll talk about 3 operators we can use in Typescript. These operators are also available in Javascript.

Sample Problem

We want to extract and add up numbers in a string. If there are no numbers, then return 0. For example, if we have the string:

“99 bottles of beer on the wall, take 1 down pass it around”

We want the function to return 100, where 99 and 1 are added together.

So in a map-reduce approach, this is my solution. (Also, as a first step, we had to split the string using space as a delimiter.).

export function sum(input: string): number {
  return input.split(' ')
              .map(word => Number(word) || 0)
              .reduce((total, current) => total + current, 0);
}

So to make sure our function is correct, we write a couple of tests:

  describe('Test sum of numbers', () => {
    it('should return 100 bottles of beer', () => {
      expect(sum('99 bottles of beer on the wall, take 1 down pass it around'))
        .to.be.equal(100);
    });

    it('should return 0 for no more bottles of beer', () => {
      expect(sum('No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer'))
        .to.be.equal(0);
    });
  });

  Test sum of numbers
    √ should return 100
    √ should return 0 for no more bottles of beer


  2 passing (9ms)

Unary Plus Operator

The Number function was my typical way to go in Typescript. But I discovered that we can also use the shorter unary plus operator.

With that, we modify our code so it is shorter:

export function sum(input: string): number {
  return input.split(' ')
              .map(word => +word || 0)
              .reduce((total, current) => total + current, 0);
}

Note that we’ve simply replaced Number(word) with just +word. It works just the same and still passes all the test.

Optional Chaining Operator

So what if the requirements change where the input string is now optional? We have to now deal with the input possibly being undefined. Let’s say, we just return undefined if there is no input string.

With that, let’s change our function:

export function sum(input?: string): number | undefined {
  if (!input) {
    return undefined;
  }
  return input.split(' ')
              .map(word => +word || 0)
              .reduce((total, current) => total + current, 0);
}

Note that we had to put in the if clause, otherwise we’ll get:

error TS2532: Object is possibly 'undefined'.

Notice, we also had to add | undefined for the return type as we want our return to be either a number or undefined.

Adding a unit test for it, and we still pass:

  describe('Test sum of numbers', () => {
    it('should return 100 bottles of beer', () => {
      expect(sum('99 bottles of beer on the wall, take 1 down pass it around'))
        .to.be.equal(100);
    });

    it('should return 0 for no more bottles of beer', () => {
      expect(sum('No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer'))
        .to.be.equal(0);
    });

    it('should return undefined for no argument', () => {
      expect(sum()).to.be.undefined;
    });
  });

  Test sum of numbers
    √ should return 100 bottles of beer
    √ should return 0 for no more bottles of beer
    √ should return undefined for no argument


  3 passing (9ms)

And now comes the optional chaining operator. We can get rid of the if clause we added earlier by using the optional chaining operator. This will make it cleaner.

export function sum(input?: string): number | undefined {
  return input?.split(' ')
              .map(word => +word || 0)
              .reduce((total, current) => total + current, 0);

}

Optional chaining lets us write code that immediately stops running if we encounter null or undefined.

Nullish Coalescing

So now, a new requirement came in! Instead of returning undefined, we must return zero instead if there is no argument. To accomodate the new requirement, we’ve now changed our code to:

export function sum(input?: string): number {
  if (input) {
    return input.split(' ')
              .map(word => +word || 0)
              .reduce((total, current) => total + current, 0)
  }

  return 0;

This is where the nullish coalescing operator comes very handy. The nullish coalescing operator lets us fallback to a default value if the left side of it is null or undefined.

With this operator, our code will be:

export function sum(input?: string): number {

  return input?.split(' ')
              .map(word => +word || 0)
              .reduce((total, current) => total + current, 0)
              ?? 0;
}

And we write a few more tests to make sure we are behaving correctly:

  describe('Test sum of numbers', () => {
    it('should return 100 bottles of beer', () => {
      expect(sum('99 bottles of beer on the wall, take 1 down pass it around'))
        .to.be.equal(100);
    });

    it('should return 0 for no more bottles of beer', () => {
      expect(sum('No more bottles of beer on the wall, no more bottles of beer'))
        .to.be.equal(0);
    });

    it('should return 0 for no argument', () => {
      expect(sum()).to.be.equal(0);
    });

    it('should return 0 for empty string', () => {
      expect(sum('')).to.be.equal(0);
    });

    it('should return 0 for undefined', () => {
      expect(sum(undefined)).to.be.equal(0);
    });

  });

  Test sum of numbers
    √ should return 100 bottles of beer
    √ should return 0 for no more bottles of beer
    √ should return 0 for no argument
    √ should return 0 for empty string
    √ should return 0 for undefined


  5 passing (11ms)

Cool! All our tests passed!

And that’s it for this post. Thanks for reading!