Wednesday, April 20, 2011

Features Of Java Script

Imperative and structured
JavaScript supports all the structured programming syntax in C (e.g., if statements, while loops, switch statements, etc.). One partial exception is scoping: C-style block-level scoping is not supported (instead, JavaScript has function-level scoping). JavaScript 1.7, however, supports block-level scoping with the let keyword. Like C, JavaScript makes a distinction between expressions and statements. One syntactic difference from C is automatic semicolon insertion, in which the semicolons that terminate statements can be omitted.

Dynamic
dynamic typing
As in most scripting languages, types are associated with values, not with variables. For example, a variable x could be bound to a number, then later rebound to a string. JavaScript supports various ways to test the type of an object, including duck typing.

object based
JavaScript is almost entirely object-based. JavaScript objects are associative arrays, augmented with prototypes (see below). Object property names are string keys: obj.x = 10 and obj["x"] = 10 are equivalent, the dot notation being syntactic sugar. Properties and their values can be added, changed, or deleted at run-time. Most properties of an object (and those on its prototype inheritance chain) can be enumerated using a for...in loop. JavaScript has a small number of built-in objects such as Function and Date.

run-time evaluation
JavaScript includes an eval function that can execute statements provided as strings at run-time.

Functional
first-class functions
Functions are first-class; they are objects themselves. As such, they have properties and methods, such as length and call(); and they can be assigned to variables, passed as arguments, returned by other functions, and manipulated like any other object. Any reference to a function allows it to be invoked using the () operator.

nested functions
'Inner' or 'nested' functions are functions defined within another function. They are created each time the outer function is invoked. In addition to that, the scope of the outer function, including any constants, local variables and argument values, become part of the internal state of each inner function object, even after execution of the outer function concludes.

closures
JavaScript allows nested functions to be created, with the lexical scope in force at their definition, and has a () operator to invoke them now or later. This combination of code that can be executed outside the scope in which it is defined, with its own scope to use during that execution, is called a closure in computer science.

Prototype-based
prototypes
JavaScript uses prototypes instead of classes for inheritance. It is possible to simulate many class-based features with prototypes in JavaScript.

functions as object constructors
Functions double as object constructors along with their typical role. Prefixing a function call with new creates a new object and calls that function with its local this keyword bound to that object for that invocation. The constructor's prototype property determines the object used for the new object's internal prototype. JavaScript's built-in constructors, such as Array, also have prototypes that can be modified.

functions as methods
Unlike many object-oriented languages, there is no distinction between a function definition and a method definition. Rather, the distinction occurs during function calling; a function can be called as a method. When a function is called as a method of an object, the function's local this keyword is bound to that object for that invocation.

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