Confused about the purpose of isNaN and Number.isNaN

JavaScript
1

I’m down a rabbit hole. I understand that NaN cannot equal itself, hence the birth of the isNaN function;

isNaN('hello' / 2);    // true
isNaN(2)    // false

I also understand that isNaN() first coerces the value you pass it, and then it sees if the value is NaN.

However, I keep reading about the “pitfalls” of isNaN(), and here is the one that is always referenced:

isNaN('hello')    // true

How is that bad behavior? I thought a string, in this case, 'hello', is indeed not a number?

So, often times, the article points to this as the solution:

Number.isNaN('hello')    // false

But, tell me, why is that better? A string isn’t a number! How does this solve anything?

2

Number.isNaN() doesn’t coerce, it simply reports back if the given value is, as it stands, a number. Of the two, this is to be preferred, as coercion is hinky at best. Not sure what articles you read, but take a look at these two:

https://devdocs.io/javascript/global_objects/isnan#Description

https://devdocs.io/javascript/global_objects/number/isnan

3

difference between isNaN and Number.isNaN

4

I think the “You Don’t Know JS: Types & Grammar” Special Numbers section does a pretty good job of explaining it.

Special Numbers

NaN literally stands for “not a number”, though this label/description is very poor and misleading, as we’ll see shortly. It would be much more accurate to think of NaN as being “invalid number,” “failed number,” or even “bad number,” than to think of it as “not a number.”

Fun fact:

const word = 'Do math with me you can not'

Number(word);
NaN

typeof Number(word) === 'number'
true
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5

Brilliant. Kyle Simpson is really good at explaining these concepts. Thank you for the reference. This is what made it stick for me.

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