instype v0.0.1

instype

instype(<value>) => <type_name>

Returns type of value or object instance. This is an alternative to typeof that actually allows to avoid confusion between the type name and the class name. Returns the name of Class (or constructor function, or reserved type name), for example: 'Object', 'Number', 'String', 'NotNumber', 'Global', 'Dictionary', 'Null', 'Array', etc.

Usage

const instype = require('instype')

instype(undefined) //=> 'Undefined'

instype(null) //=> 'Null' but not 'object'

instype(true) //=> 'Boolean'

instype(false) //=> 'Boolean'

instype(new Boolean(true)) //=> 'Boolean' but not 'object'

instype(new MyClass()) //=> 'MyClass' but not 'object'

instype(42) //=> 'Number'

instype(new Number(42)) //=> 'Number' but not 'object'

instype(1/0) //=> 'InfiniteNumber' but not 'number'

instype(-Infinity) //=> 'InfiniteNumber' but not 'number'

instype(NaN) //=> 'NotNumber' but not 'number'

instype('str') //=> 'String'

instype(new String('str')) //=> 'String' but not 'object'

instype({}) //=> 'Object'

instype(Object.create(null)) //=> 'Dictionary' but not 'object'

instype(new Object()) //=> 'Object'

instype(new Date()) //=> 'Date'

instype([1, 2, 3]) //=> 'Array'

instype(/a-z/) //=> 'RegExp' but not 'object'

instype(new RegExp('foo')) //=> 'RegExp' but not 'object'

instype(new Error('error')) //=> 'Error'

instype(new ReferenceError('')) //=> 'ReferenceError'

instype(function () {}) //=> 'Function'

instype(async function () {}) //=> 'AsyncFunction'

instype(() => {}) //=> 'Function'

instype(function * () {}) //=> 'GeneratorFunction'

instype(Symbol('str')) //=> 'Symbol'

instype(new Map()) //=> 'Map'

instype(new Int8Array()) //=> 'Int8Array'

instype(window) //=> 'Global' but not 'object'

Reserved type names

Reserved type names make possible to distinguish type of some special values from values with the real type. Historically, accessing the global object has required different syntax in different JavaScript environments. On the web you can use window, self, frames, in Node.js you must instead use global and type of this global value is 'object'. Also there are not straightforward situations with null, NaN and Infinity values. To determine the type of such values the instype function returns the following type names:

• 'Undefined' for undefined (typeof(undefined) -> 'undefined')
• 'Null' for null (typeof(null) -> 'object')
• 'Global' for global, window, etc. (typeof(global) -> 'object')
• 'NotNumber' for NaN (typeof(NaN) -> 'number')
• 'InfiniteNumber' for Infinity or -Infinity (typeof(Infinity) -> 'number')
• 'Dictionary' for object without prototype (typeof(Object.create(null)) -> 'object') that was created by Object.create(null)

Install

Install on Node.JS with npm

npm install instype

License

MIT © Taras Panasyuk