Hello Devs,
Are you facing any problem when you pass null or undefined in a function as a parameter? May be you have faced this problem or maybe you haven't.On the other hand, maybe you know the solutions in many ways.

In this post I want talk about how to pass default value in case of null and undefined. Hopefully, it will help somebody.

Oh Enough Introduction...

Let's get to the main point. Take a function called sayHi() which takes a parameter and print that parameter. that's it.

const sayHi = (greeting) => {
    console.log(greeting)
}

sayHi('Hi')

//your@console:~$ Hi

Now, if I don't give any parameter what will be happen? Let's check...

const sayHi = (greeting) => {
    console.log(greeting)
}

sayHi()

//your@console:~$ undefined

So in this case if we set a default parameter in the function,our problem will be solved.

const sayHi = (greeting='Hi') => {
    console.log(greeting)
}

sayHi()

//your@console:~$ Hi

So undefined related problem solved...!

Now ,let's check again if I put a null parameter what will happen?

const sayHi = (greeting='Hi') => {
    console.log(greeting)
}

sayHi(null)

//your@console:~$ null

Ok, that's the problem we don't need a null value as our output. Default value will be used when the parameter is undefined. However, if we put null here, our default parameter can't prevent it. Because undefined!==null

So how should we handle this?

Now we need nullish coalescing operator ??

console.log(12 ?? "not found") // 12
console.log(0  ?? "not found") // 0

console.log("Sajid" ?? "not found") // "Sajid"
console.log(""     ?? "not found") // ""

console.log(true  ?? "not found") // true
console.log(false ?? "not found") // false

console.log(undefined ?? "not found") // "not found"
console.log(null      ?? "not found") // "not found"

If the left value is null or undefined , then the right value will be assigned. That's how nullish coalescing operator works.

So out solution will be

const sayHi = (greeting) => {
    const hi = greeting ?? 'Hi'
    console.log(hi)
}

sayHi(null)

//your@console:~$ Hi

You can also use || or operator which can be problematic if your left value contains "" or 0 or false

Something like that,

console.log("" || "not found") // "not found"
console.log(0 || "not found") // "not found"

So coalescing operator is our best solution if we want to ignore only undefined and null as parameter.

So Dev, what do you think about this operator?