Converting a String to a Number in JavaScript

There are several ways to convert a string to a number in JavaScript. Let’s examine some of these solutions and some of their caveats.

The Number object

The Number object is a wrapper object that is created using the Number() constructor, but it can also be used without the new keyword to convert numeric strings and null to numbers.

typeof new Number('100'); // object
typeof Number('100'); // number

Number('100'); // 100
Number('100.8'); // 100.8
Number(new Date('December 1, 2019')); // 1575180000000
Number(null); // 0
Number(''); // 0
Number('hello'); // NaN
Number('0x11'); // 17

Unary plus (+)

The unary plus operator will attempt to convert any string it precedes into a number.

+'100'; // 100
+'100.8'; // 100.8
+new Date('December 1, 2019'); // 1575180000000
+null; // 0
+''; // 0
+'hello'; // NaN
+'0x11'; // 17

parseInt() and parseFloat()

Strings can be converted to integers by calling the parseInt() function with two parameters. The first parameter is the string to convert and the second parameter is the radix. The radix is an integer between 2 and 36 that represents the base in mathematical numeral systems. If a radix is not provided, JavaScript will make some assumptions that can lead to unreliable behavior.

parseInt('200.8', 10); // 200
parseInt('11111111', 2); // 255
parseInt('0xF', 16); // 15

If you wish to return a number that retains the decimal, parseFloat() can be used. parseFloat() only takes one argument, the string which you wish to convert to a floating point number.

parseFloat('200.8'); // 200.8
parseFloat('200.8888').toFixed(2); // 200.88