Why is (([]===[])+/-/)[1] = 'a' and (1+{})[(1<<1)+1] = 'b' in javascript?

Question

Recently I came across an interesting website that illustrates a Javascript Obfuscator: http://bl.ocks.org/jasonsperske/5400283

For example, (([]===[])+/-/)[1] gives a and (1+{})[(1<<1)+1] gives b.

I have tried hard to understand the evaluation sequence of these obfuscated result but was in vain.

Taking (1+{})[(1<<1)+1] as an example, I understand that << is the bitwise shift operator and will return 2, so the expression becomes (1+{})[3]. But then I cannot understand what does it mean by 1+{} and [3].

Google isn't really helpful to this problem as search engines don't like the brackets or slashes very much, so in case there are duplicate questions I'm sorry about that.

Answer 1

It's just obfuscation tricks.

for example :

[]===[] ===> false

and

([]===[])+/-/ ===> "false/-/" ( You could test it in the console by yourself)

So what is (([]===[])+/-/)[1] ? ( second char)

That's right :'a'

You may want to look at this also :

Answer 2

You could go step by step:

(([]===[]))

is simply false. Converted into a string "false/-/"and indexed by [1] gives you the a of the string "false".

The same goes for (1+{}) which results in the string "1[object Object]". And 1<<1+1 is another way of writing 3 so this results in "1[object Object]"[3], which is simply b.