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17. Explain `new` operator in JavaScript. What exactly does it do?

In JavaScript, the new operator is used to create an instance of an object by calling its constructor function. The main purpose of the new operator is to allocate memory for a new object and return a reference to that memory location.

When we use the new operator, it performs the following steps:

  1. It creates a new empty object.
  2. It sets the prototype of the new object to be the same as the prototype of the constructor function.
  3. It calls the constructor function with the newly created object as this.
  4. It returns the newly created object.

Here's an example of how to use the new operator:

function Person(name, age) {
  this.name = name;
  this.age = age;
}

var john = new Person('John', 30);
console.log(john.name); // 'John'
console.log(john.age); // 30

In the example above, we define a constructor function Person which takes two arguments name and age. When we create a new instance of Person using the new operator, it creates a new object with name and age properties set to the values we passed in. We then store the reference to this new object in the variable john.