In JavaScript, null is an object. There's another value for things that don't exist, undefined. The DOM returns null for almost all cases where it fails to find some structure in the document, but in JavaScript itself undefined is the value used.

Second, no, there is not a direct equivalent. If you really want to check for specifically for null, do:

Copyif (yourvar === null) // Does not execute if yourvar is `undefined`

If you want to check if a variable exists, that can only be done with try/catch, since typeof will treat an undeclared variable and a variable declared with the value of undefined as equivalent.

But, to check if a variable is declared and is not undefined:

Copyif (yourvar !== undefined) // Any scope

Previously, it was necessary to use the typeof operator to check for undefined safely, because it was possible to reassign undefined just like a variable. The old way looked like this:

Copyif (typeof yourvar !== 'undefined') // Any scope

The issue of undefined being re-assignable was fixed in ECMAScript 5, which was released in 2009. You can now safely use === and !== to test for undefined without using typeof as undefined has been read-only for some time.

If you want to know if a member exists independent but don't care what its value is:

Copyif ('membername' in object) // With inheritance
if (object.hasOwnProperty('membername')) // Without inheritance

If you want to to know whether a variable is truthy:

Copyif (yourvar)

Source

If you are interested in finding out whether a variable has been declared regardless of its value, then using the in operator is the safest way to go. Consider this example:

// global scope
var theFu; // theFu has been declared, but its value is undefined
typeof theFu; // "undefined"

But this may not be the intended result for some cases, since the variable or property was declared but just not initialized. Use the in operator for a more robust check.

"theFu" in window; // true
"theFoo" in window; // false

If you are interested in knowing whether the variable hasn't been declared or has the value undefined, then use the typeof operator, which is guaranteed to return a string:

if (typeof myVar !== 'undefined')

Direct comparisons against undefined are troublesome as undefined can be overwritten.

window.undefined = "foo";
"foo" == undefined // true

As @CMS pointed out, this has been patched in ECMAScript 5th ed., and undefined is non-writable.

if (window.myVar) will also include these falsy values, so it's not very robust:

false
0
""
NaN
null
undefined

Thanks to @CMS for pointing out that your third case - if (myVariable) can also throw an error in two cases. The first is when the variable hasn't been defined which throws a ReferenceError.

// abc was never declared.
if (abc) {
    // ReferenceError: abc is not defined
} 

The other case is when the variable has been defined, but has a getter function which throws an error when invoked. For example,

// or it's a property that can throw an error
Object.defineProperty(window, "myVariable", { 
    get: function() { throw new Error("W00t?"); }, 
    set: undefined 
});
if (myVariable) {
    // Error: W00t?
}

var lastname = "Hi";

if(typeof lastname !== "undefined")
{
  alert("Hi. Variable is defined.");
}