String equality returning false when strings are equal

Question

I have an anchor element :

<a id="buyBtn" href="#" alt="Purchase" title="Buy now" data-enabled="true">

When it is clicked, I'm doing this:

enabled = $(this).data('enabled') == "true";
console.log(enabled);

However, the console shows false. I was initially using === but that was giving false, so I moved to ==.

What do you get from console.log($(this).data('enabled'))? — jahroy
– jahroy, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 4:46
Working example showing what's at play here: jsfiddle.net/FsP3j/1 — Cᴏʀʏ
– Cᴏʀʏ, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 4:48
@Cthulhu - The issue, in reality, is the OP did === "true" instead of === true. Face, meet palm, doh si doh. — Jared Farrish
– Jared Farrish, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 4:51
@Cthulhu: That's not the issue at hand. The issue was that jquery automatically converts the string 'true' to boolean true. — Ayush
– Ayush, Commented Oct 19, 2012 at 4:51

Community · Accepted Answer · 2017-05-23 12:27:56Z

10

The accepted answer for this question details why:

jQuery's .data() method is smart enough to convert "true"/"false" data strings into real Boolean values.

The strict comparison operator checks types, and is failing because you are comparing a string to a boolean.

"true" === true // false

CommunityBot

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answered Oct 19, 2012 at 4:46

Matt Stone

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1 Comment

oh, wow...sheesh. I would never have guessed that. Thank you.