is-datatype

is

Type validation function meant to go beyond the use cases of operators such as typeof. A few of the key features in mind with the creation of this package are:

• Providing a few more common pseudo data types to check against
• Tooling (via Typescript)
• A certain degree of options to validate against

The data types available to test for are:

• boolean
• number
• integer: Numbers in the integers realm.
• natural: Numbers in the natural realm, i.e., non-negative.
• string
• function
• object
• array
• undefined
• null
• any: catch all
• symbol

This function is opinionated in the sense that:

• Arrays will not be valid for object by default. Instead, an arrayAsObject option can be passed or check against the array type.
• NaN will always be false for number, integer, or natural.

Usage

This package mainly exports is and DataType—a function and an enum respectively. In addition, a few Typescript interfaces are exported representing the different available options; however keep in mind these are generally exposed already via the third parameter in is.

DataType

An enum called DataType is exported by this package with the sole purpose of providing an simple API to expose the supported data types, listed above. It's important to keep in mind that while recommended usage for DataType is through Typescript because of it's hinting, enums—and such is the case for DataType—will function the same way in any regular Javascript environment because they're output is simply an Object.

In a nutshell DataType functions as follows:

// `DataType` named properties return natural numbers
// The number returned by `DataType` refers to an object index in the `DataType` object.
// Typescript tooling makes this very easy to use for development
typeof DataType.array === 'number';
DataType.number === 1;
 
// Calling `DataType` numbered properties as shown below will return strings of the named property
typeof DataType[DataType.number] === 'string';
DataType[DataType.number] === 'number';

To learn more about Typescript enums please refer to the Typescript docs.

is

is is the main function exported by this package. It takes the following three parameters to execute type validation:

• val {any}: The value to test for. In Typescript, the data type of the variable passed here will impact the hinting provided for options.
• type {DataType}: One of the DataType enum values with numeric output. It identifies the data type to validate for.
• options {isOptions}: An object described by the section "Options" further down. In Typescript, the options that the hinting will present will change depending on the data type of the variable passed into val.

A few usage examples to cover the basic use cases for is:

is(-10, DataType.number); // true
is(-10, DataType.boolean); // false
 
// `DataType.any` will validate `true` for any data type
is(-10, DataType.any); // true
 
// Because numbers are so vast, there's special treatment for certain particular number use cases
is(-10, DataType.integer); // true
is(-10, DataType.natural); // false
 
// Using options to affect validation
is(-10, DataType.number, { min: -10 }); // true
 
// Another example using options
// Arrays have they're own data type, but can be allowed to be treated as objects, i.e., `typeof [] === 'object'`
is([], DataType.array); // true
is([], DataType.object); // false
is([], DataType.object, { arrayAsObject: true }); // true

Currently, is can take and validate for any data type with the exception of the data types listed in the "To do" section of this document.

Options

There are a number of options available to is, but perhaps the most important detail to keep in mind is that there are specific option sets that will benefit certain data types exclusively, e.g., exclEmpty is only applicable to string. There is no negative impact to the validation outcome if options irrelevant to the data type being evaluated are passed into is; instead, the extraneous options will be ignored.

Because the options available to is are described by the isOptions interface, environments where Typescript is available will highly benefit from the hinting that is provided. This is particularly useful because IDEs will show only the valid available values based on to the variable data type being passed as the first parameter of is. In any regular Javascript environments, however, while there will be no type hinting benefits, the same exact functionality is available.

The default values for options are:

type: DataType.any; // Used for `array` use cases
exclEmpty: false; // Used for `string` use cases
schema: null; // Used for `object` and `any` use cases
arrayAsObject: false; // Used for `object` use cases
min: Number.NEGATIVE_INFINITY; // Used for `number` use cases
max: Number.POSITIVE_INFINITY; // Used for `number` use cases
multipleOf: 0; // Used for `number` use cases. `0` means no `multipleOf` check

String options

Strings have an optional value to exclude empty values by passing exclEmpty into the options, which is a boolean.

Array options

• type: DataType|DataType[]
• min: number
• max: number

With the type option, arrays can be tested to see whether their values are of a single type or one of multiple types, in which case an array of types needs to be passed into the type option. To clarify, this is strictly testing for "one of multiple types"; as long as a single one of the types passed validates as true, then is will return true.

Additionally, arrays can be tested to have min and max lengths. min and max are inclusive in their checks.

Number options

• min: number
• max: number
• multipleOf: number

multipleOf will check whether the number being evaluated is a multiple of the value in this option. Please note that when negative and positive infinities are used as the value to test for, the use of multipleOf will result in false because using Infinity on the left side of modulus is NaN.

When checking for integer and natural the number options apply as well, being that they are particular use cases of number.

To do

• Document schema options

Other notes

Handling for object-wrapped primitives, e.g., new String('xyz')

This package doesn't do anything special for object-wrapped primitives. Use at your own risk; they're a bad practice.

Symbol polyfill handling

Because Symbol polyfills can't add new primitives, often they'll produce the following situation typeof polyfilledSymbol === 'object'. To aid in that regard, while Symbol polyfills are still necessary, this package checks against the constructor name and the presence of 'constructor.iterator'. This allows for classes called Symbol to not register as symbols but objects instead.

Collaboration

Simple: For any bugs, desired changes, or feature requests, please feel free to open an issue or create a PR.