Question

Because using .toString() for null vars doesn’t work, and I can’t be checking each and every one of these in my particular application.

I know this is a stupidly simple problem with an answer that literally must be staring me in the face right now.

Answer 1

The non-concatenation route is to use the String() constructor:

var str = new String(myVar);  // returns string object
var str = String(myVar);      // returns string value

Of course, var str = "" + myVar; is shorter and easier. Be aware that all the methods here will transform a variable with a value of null into "null". If you want to get around that, you can use || to set a default when a variable’s value is “falsey” like null:

var str = myVar || ""; 

Just so long as you know that 0 and false would also result in "" here.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference/Objects/String