The Semi - Colon

Because JavaScript is considered to be a "loosely typed" language, leaving out a semi-colon will not throw an error. It is this loosely typed functionality that is a great selling point for JavaScript. Languages like C+ require absolutely every line to be terminated with a semi-colon. This strict adherence to a syntactical convention is what makes working with the "higher languages" so annoying. Examine the below example of a simple "Hello World" function, written in JavaScript, which utilizes the semi- colons in the proper places.

<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript1.2">
<! --

function writeToScreen() {
   document.write("Hello World !!!");
}

-- >
</SCRIPT>

This is obviously an incredibly simple example, but it shows the correct placement of the semi-colon. Adhere to these simple rules, and you'll have no problems in your future scripting endeavors. Comment Statements You've seen one use of the comment tags in the above SCRIPT tag examples. The "<! -- and -- >" tags are comment tags used to tell the browser not to write the textual content within to the browser window. There are three types of comment, and each is used a bit differently, as shown below.

• <! -- and -- > - This type comment statement can only be used within the opening and closing SCRIPT tags, and may comment out more than one line of content.
• /* and */ (Block of Comments) - The "Block of Comments" tells the browser to disregard the rendering of the content within the opening and closing tags. The content may span more than one line.
• // (Single Line Comment) - The "Single Line Comment" tells the browser to disregard the rendering of the content within the opening and closing tags. The content may not span more than one line. Keeping these simple rules in mind when beginning your JavaScript code will not only speed things up (less errors), but also make your code easy to read and understand at a later time.

Syntax - Page 4
The JavaScript Chronicles
Data Types - Numbers

The JavaScript Chronicles