Why does typeof array with objects return “object” and not “array”? [duplicate]

Question

One of the weird behaviour and spec in Javascript is the typeof Array is Object.

You can check if the variable is an array in couple of ways:

var isArr = data instanceof Array;
var isArr = Array.isArray(data);

But the most reliable way is:

isArr = Object.prototype.toString.call(data) == '[object Array]';

Since you tagged your question with jQuery, you can use jQuery isArray function:

var isArr = $.isArray(data);