I use an own method which includes a check if the object exists first and a more intuitive conversion to boolean:

function str2bool(strvalue){
  return (strvalue && typeof strvalue == 'string') ? (strvalue.toLowerCase() == 'true' || strvalue == '1') : (strvalue == true);
}

The results are:

var test; // false
var test2 = null; // false
var test3 = 'undefined'; // false
var test4 = 'true'; // true
var test5 = 'false'; // false
var test6 = true; // true
var test7 = false; // false
var test8 = 1; // true
var test9 = 0; // false
var test10 = '1'; // true
var test11 = '0'; // false

Fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/av5xcj6s/

if (String(a) == "true"){
  //true block
} else {
  //false block
}

@guinaps> Any string which isn't the empty string will evaluate to true by using them.

How about using the String.match() method

var str="true";
var boolStr=Boolean(str.match(/^true$/i)); 

this alone won't get the 1/0 or the yes/no, but it will catch the TRUE/true, as well, it will return false for any string that happens to have "true" as a substring.

EDIT

Below is a function to handle true/false, 1/0, yes/no (case-insensitive)

​function stringToBool(str) {
    var bool;
    if (str.match(/^(true|1|yes)$/i) !== null) {
        bool = true;
    } else if (str.match(/^(false|0|no)*$/i) !== null) {
        bool = false;
    } else {
        bool = null;
        if (console) console.log('"' + str + '" is not a boolean value');
    }
    return bool;
}

stringToBool('1'); // true
stringToBool('No'); // false
stringToBool('falsey'); // null ("falsey" is not a boolean value.)
stringToBool(''); // false

i wrote a helper function that handles your cases (and some more). Feel free to alter it to your specific needs

/**
 * @example
 * <code>
 * var pageRequestParams = {'enableFeatureX': 'true'};
 * toBool(pageRequestParams.enableFeatureX);  // returns true
 *
 * toBool(pageRequestParams.enableFeatureY, true, options.enableFeatureY)
 * </code>
 * @param {*}value
 * @param {Boolean}[mapEmptyStringToTrue=false]
 * @param {Boolean}[defaultVal=false] this is returned if value is undefined.
 *
 * @returns {Boolean}
 * @example
 * <code>
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': ''        }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': ''        }.enableFeatureX, true);    // true
 * toBool({                            }.enableFeatureX, true);    // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 0         }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': '0'       }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': '0 '      }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 'false'   }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 'falsE '  }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 'no'      }.enableFeatureX);          // false
 *
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 1         }.enableFeatureX);          // true
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': '-2'      }.enableFeatureX);          // true
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 'true'    }.enableFeatureX);          // true
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 'false_'  }.enableFeatureX);          // true
 * toBool({'enableFeatureX': 'john doe'}.enableFeatureX);          // true
 * </code>
 *
 */
var toBool = function (value, mapEmptyStringToTrue, defaultVal) {
    if (value === undefined) {return Boolean(defaultVal); }
    mapEmptyStringToTrue = mapEmptyStringToTrue !== undefined ? mapEmptyStringToTrue : false; // default to false
    var strFalseValues = ['0', 'false', 'no'].concat(!mapEmptyStringToTrue ? [''] : []);
    if (typeof value === 'string') {
        return (strFalseValues.indexOf(value.toLowerCase().trim()) === -1);
    }
    // value is likely null, boolean, or number
    return Boolean(value);
};

Here is my 1 liner submission: I needed to evaluate a string and output, true if 'true', false if 'false' and a number if anything like '-12.35673'.

val = 'false';

val = /^false$/i.test(val) ? false : ( /^true$/i.test(val) ? true : val*1 ? val*1 : val );

A lot of the existing answers are similar, but most ignore the fact that the given argument could also be an object.

Here is something I just whipped up:

Utils.parseBoolean = function(val){
    if (typeof val === 'string' || val instanceof String){
        return /true/i.test(val);
    } else if (typeof val === 'boolean' || val instanceof Boolean){
        return new Boolean(val).valueOf();
    } else if (typeof val === 'number' || val instanceof Number){
        return new Number(val).valueOf() !== 0;
    }
    return false;
};

...and the unit test for it

Utils.Tests = function(){
    window.console.log('running unit tests');

    var booleanTests = [
        ['true', true],
        ['false', false],
        ['True', true],
        ['False', false],
        [, false],
        [true, true],
        [false, false],
        ['gibberish', false],
        [0, false],
        [1, true]
    ];

    for (var i = 0; i < booleanTests.length; i++){
        var lhs = Utils.parseBoolean(booleanTests[i][0]);
        var rhs = booleanTests[i][1];
        var result = lhs === rhs;

        if (result){
            console.log('Utils.parseBoolean('+booleanTests[i][0]+') === '+booleanTests[i][1]+'\t : \tpass');
        } else {
            console.log('Utils.parseBoolean('+booleanTests[i][0]+') === '+booleanTests[i][1]+'\t : \tfail');
        }
    }
};

A shorter way to write this, could be var isTrueSet = (myValue === "true") ? true : false; Presuming only "true" is true and other values are false.

function isTrue(val) {
    try {
        return !!JSON.parse(val);
    } catch (e) {
        return false;
    }
}

Lots of fancy answers here. Really surprised no one has posted this solution:

var booleanVal = toCast > '';

This resolves to true in most cases other than bool false, number zero and empty string (obviously). You can easily look for other falsey string values after the fact e.g.:

var booleanVal = toCast > '' && toCast != 'false' && toCast != '0';  

If there's some other code that's converting the boolean value to a string, you need to know exactly how that code stores true/false values. Either that or you need to have access to a function that reverses that conversion.

There are infinitely many ways to represent boolean values in strings ("true", "Y", "1", etc.). So you shouldn't rely on some general-purpose string-to-boolean converter, like Boolean(myValue). You need to use a routine that reverses the original boolean-to-string conversion, whatever that is.

If you know that it converts true booleans to "true" strings, then your sample code is fine. Except that you should use === instead of ==, so there's no automatic type conversion.

function returnBoolean(str){

    str=str.toString().toLowerCase();

    if(str=='true' || str=='1' || str=='yes' || str=='y' || str=='on' || str=='+'){
        return(true);
    }
    else if(str=='false' || str=='0' || str=='no' || str=='n' || str=='off' || str=='-'){
        return(false);
    }else{
        return(undefined);
    }
}

Boolean.parse() does exist in some browser implementations. It's definitely not universal, so if that's something that you need than you shouldn't use this method. But in Chrome, for example (I'm using v21) it works just fine and as one would expect.

I've been using this snippet to convert Numbers and Booleans:

var result = !isNaN(value) ? parseFloat(value) : /^\s*(true|false)\s*$/i.exec(value) ? RegExp.$1.toLowerCase() === "true" : value;

Building on Steven's answer above, I wrote this function as a generic parser for string input:

parse:
  function (value) {
    switch (value && value.toLowerCase()) {
      case null: return null;
      case "true": return true;
      case "false": return false;
      default: try { return parseFloat(value); } catch (e) { return value; }
    }
  }

You even do not need to convert the string to boolean. just use the following: var yourstring = yourstringValue == 1 ? true : false;

    MyLib.Convert.bool = function(param) {
         var res = String(param).toLowerCase();
         return !(!Boolean(res) || res === "false" || res === "0");
     }; 

Simple solution i have been using it for a while

function asBoolean(value) {

    return (''+value) === 'true'; 

}


// asBoolean(true) ==> true
// asBoolean(false) ==> false
// asBoolean('true') ==> true
// asBoolean('false') ==> false

To evaluate both boolean and boolean-like strings like boolean I used this easy formula:

var trueOrStringTrue = (trueOrStringTrue === true) || (trueOrStringTrue === 'true');

As is apparent, it will return true for both true and 'true'. Everything else returns false.

The fastest safe way to convert a string to a boolean in one line of code

One of features that help to fasten the code execution in Javascript is Short-Circuit Evaluation:

As logical expressions are evaluated left to right, they are tested for possible "short-circuit" evaluation using the following rules:

• false && (anything) is short-circuit evaluated to false.
• true || (anything) is short-circuit evaluated to true.

So that if you want to test a string value for being true of false in JSON.parse way of test and keep the performance strong, you may use the || operator to exclude the slow code from execution in case the test value is of boolean type.

test === true || ['true','yes','1'].indexOf(test.toString().toLowerCase()) > -1

As the Array.prototype.indexOf() method is a part of ECMA-262 standard in the 5th edition, you may need a polyfill for the old browsers support.

// Production steps of ECMA-262, Edition 5, 15.4.4.14
// Reference: http://es5.github.io/#x15.4.4.14
if (!Array.prototype.indexOf) {
  Array.prototype.indexOf = function(searchElement, fromIndex) {

    var k;

    // 1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject passing
    //    the this value as the argument.
    if (this == null) {
      throw new TypeError('"this" is null or not defined');
    }

    var O = Object(this);

    // 2. Let lenValue be the result of calling the Get
    //    internal method of O with the argument "length".
    // 3. Let len be ToUint32(lenValue).
    var len = O.length >>> 0;

    // 4. If len is 0, return -1.
    if (len === 0) {
      return -1;
    }

    // 5. If argument fromIndex was passed let n be
    //    ToInteger(fromIndex); else let n be 0.
    var n = +fromIndex || 0;

    if (Math.abs(n) === Infinity) {
      n = 0;
    }

    // 6. If n >= len, return -1.
    if (n >= len) {
      return -1;
    }

    // 7. If n >= 0, then Let k be n.
    // 8. Else, n<0, Let k be len - abs(n).
    //    If k is less than 0, then let k be 0.
    k = Math.max(n >= 0 ? n : len - Math.abs(n), 0);

    // 9. Repeat, while k < len
    while (k < len) {
      // a. Let Pk be ToString(k).
      //   This is implicit for LHS operands of the in operator
      // b. Let kPresent be the result of calling the
      //    HasProperty internal method of O with argument Pk.
      //   This step can be combined with c
      // c. If kPresent is true, then
      //    i.  Let elementK be the result of calling the Get
      //        internal method of O with the argument ToString(k).
      //   ii.  Let same be the result of applying the
      //        Strict Equality Comparison Algorithm to
      //        searchElement and elementK.
      //  iii.  If same is true, return k.
      if (k in O && O[k] === searchElement) {
        return k;
      }
      k++;
    }
    return -1;
  };
}

Take care, maybe in the future the code change and return boolean instead of one string at the moment.

The solution would be:

//Currently
var isTrue = 'true';
//In the future (Other developer change the code)
var isTrue = true;
//The solution to both cases
(isTrue).toString() == 'true'

The following would be enough

String.prototype.boolean = function() {
    return "true" == this; 
};

"true".boolean() // returns true "false".boolean() // returns false

To Get Boolean values from string or number Here is good solution:

var boolValue = Boolean(Number('0'));

var boolValue = Boolean(Number('1'));

First will return false and second will return true.

Boolean(Number(value));
var value = 1;  //true
var value = "1" //true
var value = 0;  //false
var value = "0" //false`

works perfectly and very simple:

var boolean = "false";
boolean = (boolean === "true");

//boolean = JSON.parse(boolean); //or this way.. 

to test it:

var boolean = "false";
boolean = (boolean === "true");

//boolean = JSON.parse(boolean); //or this way.. 

if(boolean == true){
    alert("boolean = "+boolean);
}else{
    alert("boolean = "+boolean);
}