[javascript] Replace a value if null or undefined in JavaScript

ES2020 Answer

The new Nullish Coalescing Operator, is finally available on JavaScript, though browser support is limited. According to the data from caniuse, only 48.34% of browsers are supported (as of April 2020).

According to the documentation,

The nullish coalescing operator (??) is a logical operator that returns its right-hand side operand when its left-hand side operand is null or undefined, and otherwise returns its left-hand side operand.

const options={
  filters:{
    firstName:'abc'
  } 
};
const filter = options.filters[0] ?? '';
const filter2 = options.filters[1] ?? '';

This will ensure that both of your variables will have a fallback value of '' if filters[0] or filters[1] are null, or undefined.

Do take note that the nullish coalescing operator does not return the default value for other types of falsy value such as 0 and ''. If you wish to account for all falsy values, you should be using the OR operator ||.