Chapter 1. The JavaScript Language
JavaScript is a lightweight, object-based scripting language that can be embedded in HTML pages. This book starts with coverage of the core JavaScript language, followed by material on client-side JavaScript, as used in web browsers. The final portion of this book is a quick-reference for the core and client-side JavaScript APIs.
Syntax
JavaScript syntax is modeled on Java syntax, Java syntax, in turn, is modeled on C and C++ syntax. Therefore, C, C++, and Java programmers should find that JavaScript syntax is comfortably familiar.
Case sensitivity
JavaScript is a case-sensitive language. All keywords are in lowercase. All variables, function names, and other identifiers must be typed with a consistent capitalization.
Whitespace
JavaScript ignores whitespace between tokens. You may use spaces, tabs, and newlines to format and indent your code in a readable fashion.
Semicolons
JavaScript statements are terminated by semicolons. When a statement is followed by a newline, however, the terminating semicolon may be omitted. Note that this places a restriction on where you may legally break lines in your JavaScript programs: you may not break a statement across two lines if the first line can be a complete legal statement on its own.
Comments
JavaScript supports both C and C++ comments. Any amount of text,
on one or more lines, between /*
and */ is a comment, and is ignored
by JavaScript. Also, any text between // and the end of the current line is a comment, ...
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