Why is the result of ('b'+'a'+ + 'a' + 'a').toLowerCase() 'banana'?

+'a' resolves to NaN ("Not a Number") because it coerces a string to a number, while the character a cannot be parsed as a number.

document.write(+'a');

Adding NaN to "ba" turns NaN into the string "NaN" due to type conversion, gives baNaN. And then there is an a behind, giving baNaNa.

The space between + + is to make the first one string concatenation and the second one a unary plus (i.e. "positive") operator. You have the same result if you use 'ba'+(+'a')+'a', resolved as 'ba'+NaN+'a', which is equivalent to 'ba'+'NaN'+'a' due to type juggling.

document.write('ba'+(+'a')+'a');

'b' + 'a' + + 'a' + 'a'

...is evaluated as....

'b' + 'a' + (+'a') + 'a'

^{(see: operator precedence)}

(+'a') attempts to convert 'a' to a number using the unary plus operator. Because 'a' is not a number, the result is NaN ("Not a Number"):

'b'  +  'a'  +  NaN  + 'a'

Although NaN stands for "Not a Number", it's still a numeric type; when added to strings, it concatenates just as any other number would:

'b'  +  'a'  +  NaN  + 'a'  =>  'baNaNa'

Finally, it's lowercased:

'baNaNa'.toLowerCase()      =>  'banana'

('b' + 'a' + + 'a' + 'a').toLowerCase()

For clarity, let's break this down into two steps. First, we get the value of the parenthesized expression and then we apply the toLowerCase() function on the result.

Step one

'b' + 'a' + + 'a' + 'a'

Going L-R, we have:

• 'b' + 'a' returns ba, this is regular concatenation.
• ba + + 'a' attempts to concatenate ba with + 'a'. However, since the unary operator + attempts to convert its operand into a number, the value NaN is returned, which is then converted into a string when concatenated with the original ba - thus resulting in baNaN.
• baNaN + 'a' returns baNaNa. Again, this is regular concatenation.
  
  

At this stage, the result from step one is baNaNa.

Step two

Applying .toLowerCase() on the value returned from step one gives:

banana

There are many similar puns in JavaScript that you can check out.