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JavaScript Introducing the Practice

Posted by George Martinez
George Martinez
6,232 Points

Why does parseFloat() applied in a different order provide a different result?

If you copy all of this code into the console:

var x = prompt("Enter a number:"); console.log(typeof(x)); parseFloat(x); console.log(typeof(x));

the output after both console.logs is "string" AND "string". But when you do it like this:

var y = parseFloat(prompt("Enter a number")); console.log(typeof(y));

then, the result after the console.log is "number"

I do not understand what is causing this. I was expecting the first case to output "string" first and "number" after the second console.log, once the parseFloat function was applied to the variable x.

1 Answer

Stephan Olsen
Stephan Olsen
6,650 Points
Stephan Olsen
Stephan Olsen
6,650 Points

The parseFloat method takes a string as argument and then returns a number. So when you call parseFloat(x), it doesn't do anything, because you don't do anything with the return value. If the return value in a variable, and tried to check the type of it, it would in fact be a number.

var x = prompt("Enter a number:"); 
console.log(typeof(x)); // string
x = parseFloat(x); 
console.log(typeof(x)); // number
George Martinez
George Martinez
6,232 Points

Thank you Stephan. Got it.