What is the instanceof operator in JavaScript?

instanceof

The Left Hand Side (LHS) operand is the actual object being tested to the Right Hand Side (RHS) operand which is the actual constructor of a class. The basic definition is:

Checks the current object and returns true if the object
is of the specified object type.

Here are some good examples and here is an example taken directly from Mozilla's developer site:

var color1 = new String("green");
color1 instanceof String; // returns true
var color2 = "coral"; //no type specified
color2 instanceof String; // returns false (color2 is not a String object)

One thing worth mentioning is instanceof evaluates to true if the object inherits from the class's prototype:

var p = new Person("Jon");
p instanceof Person

That is p instanceof Person is true since p inherits from Person.prototype.

Per the OP's request

When you declare a variable you give it a specific type.

For instance:

int i;
float f;
Customer c;

The above show you some variables, namely i, f, and c. The types are integer, float and a user defined Customer data type. Types such as the above could be for any language, not just JavaScript. However, with JavaScript when you declare a variable you don't explicitly define a type, var x, x could be a number / string / a user defined data type. So what instanceof does is it checks the object to see if it is of the type specified so from above taking the Customer object we could do:

var c = new Customer();
c instanceof Customer; //Returns true as c is just a customer
c instanceof String; //Returns false as c is not a string, it's a customer silly!

Above we've seen that c was declared with the type Customer. We've new'd it and checked whether it is of type Customer or not. Sure is, it returns true. Then still using the Customer object we check if it is a String. Nope, definitely not a String we newed a Customer object not a String object. In this case, it returns false.

It really is that simple!

There's an important facet to instanceof that does not seem to be covered in any of the comments thus far: inheritance. A variable being evaluated by use of instanceof could return true for multiple "types" due to prototypal inheritance.

For example, let's define a type and a subtype:

function Foo(){ //a Foo constructor
    //assign some props
    return this;
}

function SubFoo(){ //a SubFoo constructor
    Foo.call( this ); //inherit static props
    //assign some new props
    return this;
}

SubFoo.prototype = Object.create(Foo.prototype); // Inherit prototype
SubFoo.prototype.constructor = SubFoo;

Now that we have a couple of "classes" lets make some instances, and find out what they're instances of:

var 
    foo = new Foo()
,   subfoo = new SubFoo()
;

alert( 
    "Q: Is foo an instance of Foo? "
+   "A: " + ( foo instanceof Foo ) 
); // -> true

alert( 
    "Q: Is foo an instance of SubFoo? " 
+   "A: " + ( foo instanceof SubFoo ) 
); // -> false

alert( 
    "Q: Is subfoo an instance of Foo? "
+   "A: " + ( subfoo instanceof Foo ) 
); // -> true

alert( 
    "Q: Is subfoo an instance of SubFoo? "
+   "A: " + ( subfoo instanceof SubFoo ) 
); // -> true

alert( 
    "Q: Is subfoo an instance of Object? "
+   "A: " + ( subfoo instanceof Object ) 
); // -> true

See that last line? All "new" calls to a function return an object that inherits from Object. This holds true even when using object creation shorthand:

alert( 
    "Q: Is {} an instance of Object? "
+   "A: " + ( {} instanceof Object ) 
); // -> true

And what about the "class" definitions themselves? What are they instances of?

alert( 
    "Q: Is Foo an instance of Object? "
+   "A:" + ( Foo instanceof Object) 
); // -> true

alert( 
    "Q: Is Foo an instance of Function? "
+   "A:" + ( Foo instanceof Function) 
); // -> true

I feel that understanding that any object can be an instance of MULTIPLE types is important, since you my (incorrectly) assume that you could differentiate between, say and object and a function by use of instanceof. As this last example clearly shows a function is an object.

This is also important if you are using any inheritance patterns and want to confirm the progeny of an object by methods other than duck-typing.

Hope that helps anyone exploring instanceof.