A primitive (primitive value, primitive data type) is data that is not an object and has no methods. In JavaScript, there are 6 primitive data types: string, number, boolean, null, undefined, symbol (new in ECMAScript 2015).
Most of the time, a primitive value is represented directly at the lowest level of the language implementation.
All primitives are immutable (cannot be changed).
Primitive wrapper objects in JavaScript
Except for null
and undefined
, all primitive values have object equivalents that wrap around the primitive values:
String
for the string primitive.Number
for the number primitive.Boolean
for the Boolean primitive.Symbol
for the Symbol primitive.
The wrapper's valueOf()
method returns the primitive value.
Learn more
General knowledge
- Introduction to JavaScript data types
- Primitive data type on Wikipedia