Is there a standard function to check for null, undefined, or blank variables in JavaScript?

Solution 1:

You can just check if the variable has a truthy value or not. That means

if( value ) {
}

will evaluate to true if value is not:

• null
• undefined
• NaN
• empty string ("")
• 0
• false

The above list represents all possible falsy values in ECMA-/Javascript. Find it in the specification at the ToBoolean section.

Furthermore, if you do not know whether a variable exists (that means, if it was declared) you should check with the typeof operator. For instance

if( typeof foo !== 'undefined' ) {
    // foo could get resolved and it's defined
}

If you can be sure that a variable is declared at least, you should directly check if it has a truthy value like shown above.

Solution 2:

The verbose method to check if value is undefined or null is:

return value === undefined || value === null;

You can also use the == operator but this expects one to know all the rules:

return value == null; // also returns true if value is undefined

Solution 3:

function isEmpty(value){
  return (value == null || value.length === 0);
}

This will return true for

undefined  // Because undefined == null

null

[]

""

and zero argument functions since a function's length is the number of declared parameters it takes.

To disallow the latter category, you might want to just check for blank strings

function isEmpty(value){
  return (value == null || value === '');
}