Tutorial: Introduction to JavaScript

Variables and Data Types

Variables store and retrieve data, also known as "values". A variable can refer to a value which changes or is changed. Variables are referred to by name, although the name you give them must conform to certain rules. A JavaScript identifier, or name, must start with a letter or underscore ("_"); subsequent characters can also be digits (0-9). Because JavaScript is case sensitive, letters include the characters "A" through "Z" (uppercase) and the characters "a" through "z" (lowercase). Typically, variable names are chosen to be meaningful regarding the value they hold. For example, a good variable name for containing the total price of goods orders would be total.

scope

When you assign a new variable to an initial value, you must consider the issue of scope. A variable may be scoped as either global or local. A global variable may be accessed from any JavaScript on the page. A local variable may only be accessed from within the function in which it was assigned. One purpose of scoping is to prevent collisions between variables of the same name; for instance, you may wish to use a variable named "Total" in one function which has a different value and meaning than another variable named "Total" in a separate function. In that case, both variables should be locally scoped.

Commonly, you create a new global variable by simply assigning it a value:

newVariable=5;

However, if you are coding within a function and you want to create a local variable which only scopes within that function you must declare the new variable using the var statement:

function newFunction() { var loop=1; total=0; ...additional statements... }

In the example above, the variable loop will be local to newFunction(), while total will be global to the entire page.

type

A value, the data assigned to a variable, may consist of any sort of data. However, JavaScript considers data to fall into several possible types. Depending on the type of data, certain operations may or may not be able to be performed on the values. For example, you cannot arithmetically multiply two string values. Variables can be these types:

Numbers	3 or 7.987, Integer and floating-point numbers. Integers can be positive, 0, or negative; Integers can be expressed in decimal (base 10), hexadecimal (base 16), and octal (base 8). A decimal integer literal consists of a sequence of digits without a leading 0 (zero). A leading 0 (zero) on an integer literal indicates it is in octal; a leading 0x (or 0X) indicates hexadecimal. Hexadecimal integers can include digits (0-9) and the letters a-f and A-F. Octal integers can include only the digits 0-7. A floating-point number can contain either a decimal point, an "e" (uppercase or lowercase), which is used to represent "ten to the power of" in scientific notation, or both. The exponent part is an "e" or "E" followed by an integer, which can be signed (preceded by "+" or "-"). A floating-point literal must have at least one digit and either a decimal point or "e" (or "E").
Booleans	True or False. The possible Boolean values are true and false. These are special values, and are not usable as 1 and 0. In a comparison, any expression that evaluates to 0 is taken to be false, and any statement that evaluates to a number other than 0 is taken to be true.
Strings	"Hello World !" Strings are delineated by single or double quotation marks. (Use single quotes to type strings that contain quotation marks.)
Objects	myObj = new Object();
Null	Not the same as zero - no value at all. A null value is one that has no value and means nothing.
Undefined	A value that is undefined is a value held by a variable after it has been created, but before a value has been assigned to it.

That said, JavaScript is a loosely typed language -- you do not have to specify the data type of a variable when you declare it, and data types are converted automatically as needed during script execution. By and large, you may simply assign any type of data to any variable. The only time data typing matters is when you need to perform operations on the data. Certain operators behave differently depending on the type of data being deal with. For example, consider the + operator:

"5" + "10"	yields	"510" (string concatenation)
5 + 10	yields	15 (arithmetic sum)