Why does arrays stored to variable "name" in Chrome convert to strings? [duplicate]

Question

When I run var name = [1,2,3] in Chrome's console and then access the value of name I get back "1,2,3". Why is this the case?

Answer 1

What you are seeing is a global variable that is part of the window object. This is actually a value the browser uses that reflects the name of the window. (see documentation)

Since window.name is a string getter/setter, your array is being cast to a string. (and the console operates in the "global scope", so var name and window.name are the same value. (if you were nested inside a function, this same behavior would not apply because it wouldn't be the global scope anymore)