Is there a better way to do optional function parameters in JavaScript?

Your logic fails if optionalArg is passed, but evaluates as false - try this as an alternative

if (typeof optionalArg === 'undefined') { optionalArg = 'default'; }

Or an alternative idiom:

optionalArg = (typeof optionalArg === 'undefined') ? 'default' : optionalArg;

Use whichever idiom communicates the intent best to you!

If you need to chuck a literal NULL in, then you could have some issues. Apart from that, no, I think you're probably on the right track.

The other method some people choose is taking an assoc array of variables iterating through the argument list. It looks a bit neater but I imagine it's a little (very little) bit more process/memory intensive.

function myFunction (argArray) {
    var defaults = {
        'arg1'  :   "value 1",
        'arg2'  :   "value 2",
        'arg3'  :   "value 3",
        'arg4'  :   "value 4"
    }

    for(var i in defaults) 
        if(typeof argArray[i] == "undefined") 
               argArray[i] = defaults[i];

    // ...
}

You can use some different schemes for that. I've always tested for arguments.length:

function myFunc(requiredArg, optionalArg){
  optionalArg = myFunc.arguments.length<2 ? 'defaultValue' : optionalArg;

  ...

-- doing so, it can't possibly fail, but I don't know if your way has any chance of failing, just now I can't think up a scenario, where it actually would fail ...

And then Paul provided one failing scenario !-)

Similar to Oli's answer, I use an argument Object and an Object which defines the default values. With a little bit of sugar...

/**
 * Updates an object's properties with other objects' properties. All
 * additional non-falsy arguments will have their properties copied to the
 * destination object, in the order given.
 */
function extend(dest) {
  for (var i = 1, l = arguments.length; i < l; i++) {
    var src = arguments[i]
    if (!src) {
      continue
    }
    for (var property in src) {
      if (src.hasOwnProperty(property)) {
        dest[property] = src[property]
      }
    }
  }
  return dest
}

/**
 * Inherit another function's prototype without invoking the function.
 */
function inherits(child, parent) {
  var F = function() {}
  F.prototype = parent.prototype
  child.prototype = new F()
  child.prototype.constructor = child
  return child
}

...this can be made a bit nicer.

function Field(kwargs) {
  kwargs = extend({
    required: true, widget: null, label: null, initial: null,
    helpText: null, errorMessages: null
  }, kwargs)
  this.required = kwargs.required
  this.label = kwargs.label
  this.initial = kwargs.initial
  // ...and so on...
}

function CharField(kwargs) {
  kwargs = extend({
    maxLength: null, minLength: null
  }, kwargs)
  this.maxLength = kwargs.maxLength
  this.minLength = kwargs.minLength
  Field.call(this, kwargs)
}
inherits(CharField, Field)

What's nice about this method?

• You can omit as many arguments as you like - if you only want to override the value of one argument, you can just provide that argument, instead of having to explicitly pass undefined when, say there are 5 arguments and you only want to customise the last one, as you would have to do with some of the other methods suggested.
• When working with a constructor Function for an object which inherits from another, it's easy to accept any arguments which are required by the constructor of the Object you're inheriting from, as you don't have to name those arguments in your constructor signature, or even provide your own defaults (let the parent Object's constructor do that for you, as seen above when CharField calls Field's constructor).
• Child objects in inheritance hierarchies can customise arguments for their parent constructor as they see fit, enforcing their own default values or ensuring that a certain value will always be used.

This is what I ended up with:

function WhoLikesCake(options) {
  options = options || {};
  var defaultOptions = {
    a : options.a || "Huh?",
    b : options.b || "I don't like cake."
  }
  console.log('a: ' + defaultOptions.b + ' - b: ' + defaultOptions.b);

  // Do more stuff here ...
}

Called like this:

WhoLikesCake({ b : "I do" });

Those ones are shorter than the typeof operator version.

function foo(a, b) {
    a !== undefined || (a = 'defaultA');
    if(b === undefined) b = 'defaultB';
    ...
}