JavaScript syntax
set of rules that define a JavaScript program
The syntax of JavaScript is the set of rules that define a correctly structured JavaScript program.
The examples below make use of the console.log() function present in most browsers for standard text output.
The JavaScript standard library lacks an official standard text output function (with the exception of document.write). Given that JavaScript is mainly used for client-side scripting within modern web browsers, and that almost all web browsers provide the alert function, alert can also be used, but it is not commonly used.
TypeScript, which extends JavaScript with type annotations and additional features, has the same syntax as well as its own additional features.
Origins
Brendan Eich summarized the ancestry of the syntax in the first paragraph of the JavaScript 1.1 specification as follows:
JavaScript borrows most of its syntax from Java, but also inherits from Awk and Perl, with some indirect influence from Self in its object prototype system.
JavaScript syntax is mostly derived from Java syntax, which in turn is derived from C syntax and C++ syntax.
Basics
Keywords
Reserved keywords
The following words are keywords.
Reserved keywords in strict mode
The following words are keywords in strict mode.
Reserved keywords in module code or async function body
The following words are keywords in module code or async function body
Literal values
The following words refer to literal values used by the language.
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This entry incorporates text from “JavaScript syntax” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.