String.charCodeAt Max Length

Question

Take this code:

var charCode = unkownVariable.charCodeAt(0);

What is the max length that charCode can be? All my tests turned out as 2 character (2 digits). Will it ever be longer?

Answer 1

From the specification:

Returns a Number (a nonnegative integer less than 2¹⁶) representing the code unit value of the character at position pos in the String resulting from converting this object to a String. If there is no character at that position, the result is NaN.

So, 2¹⁶ - 1 is the maximum value, which is 65535.

Answer 2

MDN says

Note that charCodeAt will always return a value that is less than 65,536.

https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/charCodeAt

Answer 3

Short answer: yes.

var unkownVariable = 'test';
var charCode = unkownVariable.charCodeAt(0);
console.log(charCode); // 116

There are 16 bits used to display characters (there are different languages and charsets to consider), so the response theoretically could be anywhere between 0 and 65536 (2^16).