Statements

Statements are used in JavaScript to control its program flow. Unlike properties, methods, and events, which are fundamentally tied to the object that owns them, statements are designed to work independently of any JavaScript object. That means you can use a statement whether you're working with the document object, the window object, the history object, or some other object. As a language, JavaScript supports relatively few statements -- just enough to get by. It does, however, offer the bare minimum of statements that are needed to construct a fully-functional application.

JavaScript currently supports the following eleven statements. Note that some of these -- such as comment, var, and new -- aren't bona fide statements, but they are often treated as such. They are included in this discussion for the sake of completeness.

• // comment
• break
• continue
• for
• for...in
• function
• if...else
• new
• return
• var
• while
• with

A few of the statements offered in Java are notably lacking in JavaScript. This includes the switch statement, as well as all forms of error-trapping statements (such as catch and throw). JavaScript keeps these statements as reserved words, and perhaps in some future version, they will be implemented.

Comment (//)

The // characters tell JavaScript that you want to include explanatory comments in your program. The comment ends at the first hard return that is encountered. JavaScript places no limit on the length of the comment, as long as there is no hard return before the comment ends. JavaScript assumes text after the hard return is valid code.

// This is a simple comment


// This is another comment that spans more than one line. Though the  comment wraps to the second line, the first line ends with a "soft return" in the text editing program.  No hard return character is inserted.

You can place the // comment characters anywhere on a line. JavaScript will treat all the text on that line after the // as a comment.

MyVariable="This is a test" // assigns text variable MyVariable

Comments are ignored when the script is played, so they do not greatly affect the speed of execution. However, lots of comments increase the file size of scripts and take longer to download to the user's computer over a dial-up Internet connection. For best results, limit comments in JavaScript programs to brief, single lines.

When writing long comments it's better to use the alternate commenting characters /* and */. Text between these characters is treated as a comment. Alternatively, you can start each line with the // comment characters.

// This section checks to see if the Enter key is pressed, // then continues on

or

/* This section checks to see if the Enter key is pressed, then continues on */

Break

The break statement tells JavaScript to exit a "controlled structure" and resume execution at a point after the structure. The break statement is used with structures built using the following commands:

• for
• for...in
• while

The break statement is most commonly used to prematurely end a for loop. For example:

for (Count=1; Count<=10; Count++) {
        if (Count == 6)
                break;
document.write ("<P>Loop: " + Count + "</P>");
}

This example shows a for loop that counts from 1 to 10 and prints the number at each iteration of the loop. An if statement inside the for loop is used to test if the value in the Count variable is equal to 6. If Count equals 6, the break statement is executed, and the script exits the for loop. As used in this simple example, the script will count from 1 to 6, then stop. It exits the for loop before it can count up to 10.

Continue

The continue statement tells JavaScript to skip any instructions that may follow in a for, for...in, or while loop, and proceed with the next iteration. The most common use of the continue statement is to conditionally skip instructions in the loop but not exit the loop (as the break statement does). For example:

for (Count=1; Count<=10; Count++) {
    if (Count == 6)
        continue;
    document.write ("<P>Loop: " + Count + "</P>");
}

The example above shows a for loop that counts from 1 to 10 and prints the number at each iteration of the loop. An if statement inside the for loop is used to test if the value in the Count variable is equal to 6. If Count equals 6, the continue statement is executed, and the script skips the document.write instruction on the next line. But the loop doesn't end. Instead, it continues and prints lines for the remaining numbers. As used in this simple example, the script will count from 1 to 5, skip 6, then print 7 through 10.

For

The for statement repeats a block of instructions one or more times. The number of iterations is controlled by values supplied as arguments. The syntax of the for statement is:

for (InitVal; Test; Increment) 

• InitVal is the starting value of the for loop. It is often 0 or 1, but it can be any number. InitVal is an expression that establishes the initial value and assigns that value to a variable. For example, Count=0 or i=1.
• Test is the expression used by the for statement to control the number of iterations of the loop. As long as the Test expression is true, the loop continues. When the Test expression proves false, the loop ends. Example: Count<10 is true as long as the value in the Count variable is less than 10.
• Increment indicates how you want the for loop to count -- by ones, twos, fives, tens, and so on. This is also an expression and usually takes the form of CountVar++, where CountVar is the name of the variable first assigned in the InitVal expression. Example: Count++ increases the value of the Count variable by one for each iteration.

Note that unlike all of the other constructs in JavaScript, the for statement uses semicolons, rather than commas, to separate its arguments. This is in keeping with the syntax used in C, C++, and Java.

Here's an example of a for loop that counts from 1 to 10, stepping one digit at a time. At each iteration, the script inserts some text and begins a new line. The JavaScript you wish to repeat is enclosed in { and } characters following the for statement; this forms the for statement block. You can provide one line or many within the { and } characters.

for (Count=1; Count<=10; Count++) {
    document.write ("Iteration: "+Count+"<BR>");
}

Count is the variable name used to store the for loop counter. The for loop starts out with 1 and proceeds to 10. The test expression is Count<=10, which reads:

Count is less than or equal to 10

As long as this expression is true, the for loop continues. Do note that the Increment argument is also an expression and in the example uses the Count variable to increment the for loop by 1 for each iteration. There's no law that says you must increment the for loop by ones. Here's just one of the many alternatives. This example counts by tens, from 10 to 100.

for (Count=1; Count<101; Count+=10) {
    document.write ("Iteration: "+Count+"<BR>");
}

For...in

The for...in statement is a special version of the for statement described in the previous section. For...in is used to display the property names and/or property contents of objects. It is mostly handy as a debugging and testing tool: If a portion of your JavaScript code isn't working properly, and you suspect it may be the fault of a JavaScript object you are trying to use, you can examine all of the properties for that object with the for...in statement.

Unlike the for statement, for...in doesn't use incrementing tests or other expressions. You provide the name of a holding variable (the name of the variable is up to you) and the object you want to use. The basic syntax for the for...in statement is:

for (var in object) {
    statements
}

• var is the name of a variable
• object is the object you wish to examine
• statements are one or more JavaScript instructions you wish to execute for each property returned by the for...in loop

As an example, suppose you want to determine the properties of the navigator object (this object contains details about the Netscape Navigator or other browser you are using). The following code displays each property name in an alert box. When running the script, click OK to proceed to the next property name. The loop automatically ends when there are no more properties in the object.

for (temp in navigator) {
    alert (temp);
}

A variation of this example is shown below. It not only displays the property names but also displays the contents of each property (some properties are empty and therefore no contents are shown for them). The contents of the properties are displayed by using the syntax object[var], or in this case navigator[temp].

for (temp in navigator) {
    alert (temp + ": " + navigator[temp]);
}

The for..in loop can be used for all object types. You can use it to iterate through all the properties for a form in a document, for example, or through the properties of a user-defined object. For instance, to cycle through all the properties of a form, you'd use the for...in loop as in the following example(assume the form name is "myform"):

<SCRIPT>
function test() {
    for (temp in document.myform) {
        alert (temp);
    }
}
</SCRIPT>
<FORM NAME="myform">
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="box1"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="box2"><BR>
<INPUT TYPE="text" NAME="box3"><P>
<INPUT TYPE="button" VALUE="Click" onClick="test()">
</FORM>

Function

The function statement lets you create your own user-defined functions (as well as user-defined objects and methods for those objects). Functions are self-contained routines that can be "called" elsewhere within your JavaScript code. For example, if you have a function named

writeMyName

, which displays your name in headline text, you can activate it by merely referring to the name

writeMyName

someplace within your JavaScript code. Here's a short

that shows how this might work:

<HTML>
<HEAD>
<TITLE>Function Test</TITLE>
<SCRIPT LANGUAGE="JavaScript">
function writeMyName () {
        MyName="John Doe"
        alert (MyName)
}
</SCRIPT>
</HEAD>
<BODY>
<FORM>
<INPUT TYPE="button" NAME="button1" VALUE="Click Me!" onClick="writeMyName()"><P>
</FORM>
</BODY>
</HTML>

The writeMyName function is defined within <SCRIPT>...</SCRIPT> tags. It is activated (otherwise known as "called") when the form button is pushed. This calling action is accomplished using the onClick event handler, defined in the <INPUT> tag for the form button.

If...else

The if, along with its optional else, statement is used to build an "if conditional" expression. It is called a conditional expression because it tests for a specific condition.

• If the expression is true, the script performs the instructions following the if statement.
• If the expression is false, the script jumps to the instructions that follow the else statement. If there is no else statement, the script jumps past the if statement entirely and continues from there.

The syntax for if is:

if (expression)

The result of the if expression is always either true or false. The following syntax is acceptable when there's only one instruction following the if and else statements:

if (ExampleVar == 10)
    Start();
else
    Stop();

Should more than one instruction follow the if or else statement, the { and } characters must be used to define an if statement block. With the { and } characters in place, JavaScript knows to execute all of the instructions within the block.

if (ExampleVar == 10) {
    Count = 1;
    Start();
} else {
    Count = 0; 
    Stop();
}

Expressions in if statements are not limited to the == equality operator. You can test if values are not equal to one another, greater than, less than, and more. For more information on the operators you can use, see the references list at the end of this column. It points to valuable JavaScript documentation, including documentation provided by Netscape.

New

The new statement creates a new copy of an object. It is used in either of two ways:

• To define a new Date object (Date is a built-in JavaScript object)
• To define a new user-defined object

The syntax is the same with either use:

varname = new objectName(params);

• varname is the name of the new object. Acceptable names are the same as for JavaScript variables. In fact, you can consider the created object as a JavaScript variable.
• objectName is the name of the object. When using the built-in Date object, you use the word Date (note the capitalization -- this is mandatory). When using a user-defined object function, you provide the name of the object function.
• params are one or more parameters that you pass to the object function, if needed.

The following example shows how to use the new statement to create a copy -- otherwise known as an "instance" -- of the Date object:

now = new Date();

The now object, which can be considered a JavaScript variable, has all the properties and methods of the JavaScript Date object. For example, you use the now object to determine the current hour of the day:

now = new Date();
HourNow = now.getHours();