Hey folks 👋
I recently published a small npm package called helper-utils-ts, and I wanted to share it with the community here on DEV. It solves something many of us run into pretty often — repetitive checks for null, undefined, and empty values scattered all over the codebase.
Why this library?
In multiple projects, I noticed I kept writing variations of:
if (value !== null && value !== undefined && value !== "") {
// do something
}
This gets messy fast — especially in TypeScript projects where cleaner, readable checks are important.
So I extracted the checking logic into small reusable helpers and released them as a package.
No dependencies.
No setup.
Just simple helpers.
📦 Installationnpm install helper-utils-ts
Or if you’re installing globally:npm install -g helper-utils-ts
🧑💻 Usage Example
import { isUndefined, isNull, isEmpty } from "helper-utils-ts";
let foo;
console.log(isUndefined(foo)); // true
console.log(isNull(null)); // true
console.log(isEmpty("")); // true
console.log(isEmpty("null")); // true
console.log(isEmpty("undefined")); // true
🔍 How this differs from Lodash (and others)
Libraries like Lodash are extremely powerful, but they’re also large and general-purpose.
This package has a very focused goal:
- Only handles value validation checks
- Very small footprint
- TypeScript-native with clean typings
- Handles real-world edge cases (like
"null"string from user input)
If you just need small readability helpers — this fits well.
If you’re building full data pipelines — you probably want Lodash or Ramda.
🎯 Where this helps most
- Input validation (frontend or backend)
- Normalizing API or JSON payload values
- Form processing and sanitization
- Serverless / microservice environments where bundle size matters
- Beginner-friendly or clarity-focused codebases
💬 Feedback appreciated!
This library is intentionally minimal — but it can grow if the community finds other practical helper patterns worth adding. Suggestions are welcome 🙌
Thanks for taking a look and happy coding! ✨
