Why are JavaScript negative numbers not always true or false?

In the first two cases, the boolean is cast to a number - 1 for true and 0 for false. In the final case, it is a number that is cast to a boolean and any number except for 0 and NaN will cast to true. So your test cases are really more like this:

-1 == 1; // false-1 == 0; // falsetrue ? true : false; // true

The same would be true of any number that isn't 0 or 1.

For more detail, read the ECMAScript documentation. From the 3rd edition [PDF], section 11.9.3 The Abstract Equality Comparison Algorithm:

19. If Type(y) is Boolean, return the result of the comparison x == ToNumber(y).

It's worth giving the full algorithm a read because other types can cause worse gotchas.

In most systems, non-zero values are considered a true value, but that doesn't necessarily mean that they are the same true value as true. Thus, -1 == true doesn't necessarily hold, but -1 can still be considered a true value since it is non-zero.

Really, though, you shouldn't be comparing integers to booleans if you can avoid it.

When evaluated as a test condition, integers like -1, 5 and 17,000,000, all return Boolean true, because they logically evaluate to true, e.g.

if(-1) {    "This is true";}else {    "This is false";}=> "This is true";

(Note: 0 logically evaluates to false)

Using the "?" operator does what this code just does. It passes the first argument as a condition in an if statement, passes the second argument as the true case, and passes the third argument as the false case.

Hence the third result.

However, these integers are not of the same type as true.

True is of type Boolean, -1, 5 and 17,000,000 are of type Integer.

The comparison '==' is strict, in terms of type comparison. Even two things have the same "value", but not the same type, the "==" operator returns false:

if(6 == true) {    "This is true";}else {    "This is false";}=> "This is false";

Even the following will return false, because "true" is of type String and true is of type Boolean:

if("true" == true) {    "This is true";}else {    "This is false";}=> "This is false";

Hence, the first two results.

Note: If you'd like to compare values irregardless of type, use the "===" operator:

if(6 === true) {    "This is true";}else {    "This is false";}=> "This is true";

and also,

if("true" === true) {    "This is true";}else {    "This is false";}=> "This is true";

Hope this helps!