Skip to content

eslint/no-empty-pattern Correctness

This rule is turned on by default.

What it does

Disallow empty destructuring patterns

Why is this bad?

When using destructuring, it’s possible to create a pattern that has no effect. This happens when empty curly braces are used to the right of an embedded object destructuring pattern, such as:

JavaScript
// doesn't create any variables
var {a: {}} = foo;

In this code, no new variables are created because a is just a location helper while the {} is expected to contain the variables to create, such as:

JavaScript
// creates variable b
var {a: { b }} = foo;

In many cases, the empty object pattern is a mistake where the author intended to use a default value instead, such as:

JavaScript
// creates variable a
var {a = {}} = foo;

The difference between these two patterns is subtle, especially because the problematic empty pattern looks just like an object literal.

Examples of incorrect code for this rule:

JavaScript
var {} = foo;
var [] = foo;
var {a: {}} = foo;
var {a: []} = foo;
function foo({}) {}
function foo([]) {}
function foo({a: {}}) {}
function foo({a: []}) {}

Examples of correct code for this rule:

JavaScript
var {a = {}} = foo;
var {a = []} = foo;
function foo({a = {}}) {}
function foo({a = []}) {}

References

Released under the MIT License.