What is the difference between atomic and compound data types in JavaScript?
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What is the difference between atomic and compound data types in JavaScript?
JavaScript (well, ECMAScript) differentiates between “primitive values” and “objects”. I’m not entirely sure if that’s the same as what you’re thinking of, but I’m guessing so.
From the ECMAScript 5 specification, primitive values are defined as follows:
And objects are defined as follows:
Section 8 of the spec gives more details of all the types. In particular, note section 8.6:
And that’s the big difference – an object is effectively a map of keys and values. Primitive values are just that – values!