javascript - parseInt(null, 24) === 23... wait, what?

Question

Alright, so I was messing around with parseInt to see how it handles values not yet initialized and I stumbled upon this gem. The below happens for any radix 24 or above.

parseInt(null, 24) === 23 // evaluates to true

I tested it in IE, Chrome and Firefox and they all alert true, so I'm thinking it must be in the specification somewhere. A quick Google search didn't give me any results so here I am, hoping someone can explain.

I remember listening to a Crockford speech where he was saying typeof null === "object" because of an oversight causing Object and Null to have a near identical type identifier in memory or something along those lines, but I can't find that video now.

Try it: http://jsfiddle.net/robert/txjwP/

Edit Correction: a higher radix returns different results, 32 returns 785077
Edit 2 From zzzzBov: [24...30]:23, 31:714695, 32:785077, 33:859935, 34:939407, 35:1023631, 36:1112745

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tl;dr

Explain why parseInt(null, 24) === 23 is a true statement.

Answer 1

It's converting null to the string "null" and trying to convert it. For radixes 0 through 23, there are no numerals it can convert, so it returns NaN. At 24, "n", the 14th letter, is added to the numeral system. At 31, "u", the 21st letter, is added and the entire string can be decoded. At 37 on there is no longer any valid numeral set that can be generated and NaN is returned.

js> parseInt(null, 36)
1112745

>>> reduce(lambda x, y: x * 36 + y, [(string.digits + string.lowercase).index(x) for x in 'null'])
1112745