parseInt vs unary plus, when to use which?

The ultimate whatever-to-number conversion table: Conversion table

EXPRS = [
    'parseInt(x)',
    'parseFloat(x)',
    'Number(x)',
    '+x',
    '~~x',
    'x>>>0',
    'isNaN(x)'

];

VALUES = [
    '"123"',
    '"+123"',
    '"-123"',
    '"123.45"',
    '"-123.45"',
    '"12e5"',
    '"12e-5"',
    
    '"0123"',
    '"0000123"',
    '"0b111"',
    '"0o10"',
    '"0xBABE"',
    
    '"4294967295"',
    '"123456789012345678"',
    '"12e999"',

    '""',
    '"123foo"',
    '"123.45foo"',
    '"  123   "',
    '"foo"',
    '"12e"',
    '"0b567"',
    '"0o999"',
    '"0xFUZZ"',

    '"+0"',
    '"-0"',
    '"Infinity"',
    '"+Infinity"',
    '"-Infinity"',

    'null',
    'undefined',
    'true',
    'false',
    'Infinity',
    'NaN',

    '{}',
    '{valueOf: function(){return 42}}',
    '{toString: function(){return "56"}}',

];

//////

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function val(n) {
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var rows = VALUES.map(function (v) {
    var x = eval('(' + v + ')');
    return [v].concat(EXPRS.map(function (e) {
        return val(eval(e))
    }));
});

document.body.innerHTML = table(["x"].concat(EXPRS), rows);
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Well, here are a few differences I know of:

  • An empty string "" evaluates to a 0, while parseInt evaluates it to NaN. IMO, a blank string should be a NaN.

      +'' === 0;              //true
      isNaN(parseInt('',10)); //true
    
  • The unary + acts more like parseFloat since it also accepts decimals.

    parseInt on the other hand stops parsing when it sees a non-numerical character, like the period that is intended to be a decimal point ..

      +'2.3' === 2.3;           //true
      parseInt('2.3',10) === 2; //true
    
  • parseInt and parseFloat parses and builds the string left to right. If they see an invalid character, it returns what has been parsed (if any) as a number, and NaN if none was parsed as a number.

    The unary + on the other hand will return NaN if the entire string is non-convertible to a number.

      parseInt('2a',10) === 2; //true
      parseFloat('2a') === 2;  //true
      isNaN(+'2a');            //true
    
  • As seen in the comment of @Alex K., parseInt and parseFloat will parse by character. This means hex and exponent notations will fail since the x and e are treated as non-numerical components (at least on base10).

    The unary + will convert them properly though.

      parseInt('2e3',10) === 2;  //true. This is supposed to be 2000
      +'2e3' === 2000;           //true. This one's correct.
    
      parseInt("0xf", 10) === 0; //true. This is supposed to be 15
      +'0xf' === 15;             //true. This one's correct.