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Literals represent values in JavaScript. These are fixed values—not variables—that you literally provide in your script.

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Literal

Examples

String literals

A string literal is zero or more characters enclosed in double (" ) or single quotation marks (' ). A string must be delimited by quotation marks of the same type (that is, either both single quotation marks, or both double quotation marks).

The following are examples of string literals:

js
                                        
                                            "foo"
                                            ;
                                            "bar"
                                            ;
                                            "1234"
                                            ;
                                            "one line \n new line"
                                            ;
                                            "Joyo's cat"
                                            ;
                                        
                                    

Object literals

An object literal is a list of zero or more pairs of property names and associated values of an object, enclosed in curly braces ({} ).

The following is an example of an object literal. The first element of the car object defines a property, myCar , and assigns to it a new string, "Toyota "; the second element, the getCar property, is immediately assigned the result of invoking the function carTypes('Honda') ; the third element, the special property, uses an existing variable (sales ).

js
                                        
                                            const
                                            sales =
                                            "BMW"
                                            ;
                                            function
                                            carTypes
                                            (
                                            name
                                            )
                                            {
                                            return
                                            name ===
                                            "Honda"
                                            ?
                                            name :
                                            
                                                `
                                                Sorry, we don't sell 
                                                
                                                    ${
                                                    name}
                                                
                                                .
                                                `
                                            
                                            ;
                                            }
                                            const
                                            car =
                                            {
                                            myCar
                                            :
                                            "Toyota"
                                            ,
                                            getCar
                                            :
                                            carTypes
                                            (
                                            "Honda"
                                            )
                                            ,
                                            special
                                            :
                                            sales,
                                            }
                                            ;
                                            console.
                                            log
                                            (
                                            car.
                                            myCar)
                                            ;
                                            // Toyota
                                            console.
                                            log
                                            (
                                            car.
                                            getCar)
                                            ;
                                            // Honda
                                            console.
                                            log
                                            (
                                            car.
                                            special)
                                            ;
                                            // BMW
                                        
                                    

See also

Updated on April 20, 2024 by Datarist.