Question

I would like to find out if a Javascript variable exists. This is what I have so far which was cobbled together from different forums:

function valueOfVar(foo){

    var has_foo = typeof foo != 'undefined';

    if(has_foo){
        alert('1 = true');
        return true;
    }
    else {
        alert('1 = false');
        return false;
    }

}

Please note, I wish to pass in a
string as foo. Example: valueOfVar(box_split[0]+’_2′)

Now, I don’t think this works because it returns true when certain variables don’t even exist. In fact, it seems to return true all the time.

A JQuery implementation that works would also be great as I make use of this.

Thanks all for any help

Answer 1

Do you mean something like this?

function variableDefined (name) {
    return typeof this[name] !== 'undefined';
}

console.log(variableDefined('fred'));
// Logs "false"

var fred = 10;
console.log(variableDefined('fred'));
// Logs "true"

If you want to be able to handle local variables you’ll have to do something quite weird like this:

function variableDefined2 (value) {
    return typeof value !== 'undefined';
}

function test() {
    var name = 'alice'
    console.log(variableDefined2(eval(name)));
    var alice = 11;
    console.log(variableDefined2(eval(name)));
}

test();
// Logs false, true