Purpose of Function returns only boolean

Question

Somewhere in jQuery I have seen 2 functions that returns only boolean like below.

function h(){
   return !0;
}

function r(){
   return !1; 
}

What is the purpose of doing this, while Boolean can be written directly?

I think reading debug version might help you understand better. — Rajesh, Aug 01 '16 at 13:55
@Downvoter - yeah, this code looks like expanded minified code. — evolutionxbox, Aug 01 '16 at 13:59
@Downvoter yeah, so does this mean that this functions won't be in original unminified code ? — shyammakwana.me, Aug 01 '16 at 14:01
Maybe. Depends on how the obfuscated code was created and if it is obfuscation at all. But yes, maybe. After all, my comment is just a guess out of the blue, therefore it's not an answer but a comment. — cadaniluk, Aug 01 '16 at 14:03
@Downvoter thanks though. Yes it was minified code , so maybe you are right. :) — shyammakwana.me, Aug 01 '16 at 17:34

score 3 · Answer 1 · answered Aug 01 '16 at 13:58

Economy of characters.

Having a 3 character function that returns true or false takes less characters than doing an exact comparison.

var a = false;
if (a === r()) console.log('3 characters instead of 5')

Large libraries usually alias commonly used globals like undefined and window as well for minification.

For example, you may see something like

(function($, a, b) { ... })(jQuery, window, undefined)

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Aug 01 '16 at 13:54

2

0 is falsey and 1 is truthy.

So, there is no need to convert them to boolean unless they are used in code like

if (h() === false) {

Or code converted when the code is minified as true and false are minified to !1 and !0 respectively.

answered Aug 01 '16 at 13:54

Tushar

I don't think `h()` is used to compared to `false`, there is no mean as in `h` there is no other data to compare. – shyammakwana.me Aug 01 '16 at 13:57

2 Answers2