CoffeeScript

About the Tutorial

CoffeeScript is a lightweight language which transcompiles into JavaScript. It provides better
syntax avoiding the quirky parts of JavaScript, still retaining the flexibility and beauty of the
language.

Audience
This tutorial has been prepared for beginners to help them understand the basic functionality of
CoffeeScript to build dynamic webpages and web applications.

Prerequisites
For this tutorial, it is assumed that the readers have a prior knowledge of HTML coding and
JavaScript. It would help if the reader has some prior exposure to object-oriented programming
concepts and a general idea on creating online applications.

Execute CoffeeScript Online

For most of the examples given in this tutorial, you will find Try it option, so just make use of
this option to transcompile your CoffeeScript programs to JavaScript programs on the spot and
enjoy your learning.

Try the following example using the Try it option available at the top right corner of the below
sample code box −

console.log "Hello Welcome to Tutorials point"

Copyright & Disclaimer

© Copyright 2016 by Tutorials Point (I) Pvt. Ltd.

All the content and graphics published in this e-book are the property of Tutorials Point (I) Pvt.
Ltd. The user of this e-book is prohibited to reuse, retain, copy, distribute or republish any
contents or a part of contents of this e-book in any manner without written consent of the
publisher.

We strive to update the contents of our website and tutorials as timely and as precisely as
possible, however, the contents may contain inaccuracies or errors. Tutorials Point (I) Pvt. Ltd.
provides no guarantee regarding the accuracy, timeliness or completeness of our website or its
contents including this tutorial. If you discover any errors on our website or in this tutorial,
please notify us at [email protected]

i
 CoffeeScript

Table of Contents
About the Tutorial............................................................................................................................................... i

Audience ............................................................................................................................................................. i

Prerequisites ....................................................................................................................................................... i

Execute CoffeeScript Online ................................................................................................................................ i

Copyright & Disclaimer ....................................................................................................................................... i

Table of Contents ............................................................................................................................................... ii

1. COFFEESCRIPT – OVERVIEW .......................................................................................................... 1

What is CoffeeScript ? ........................................................................................................................................ 1

History of CoffeeScript ....................................................................................................................................... 1

Limitations of CoffeeScript ................................................................................................................................. 2

TutorialsPoint's CoffeeScript IDE ........................................................................................................................ 2

2. COFFEESCRIPT – ENVIRONMENT ................................................................................................... 4

Node.js............................................................................................................................................................... 4

Installing Node.js ............................................................................................................................................... 4

Installing CoffeeScript ........................................................................................................................................ 8

3. COFFEESCRIPT – COMMAND-LINE UTILITY .................................................................................... 9

Compiling the CoffeeScript Code ........................................................................................................................ 9

Executing the CoffeeScript code ........................................................................................................................11

Watch and Compile ...........................................................................................................................................11

Setting the Output Directory .............................................................................................................................12

Print the Compiled JavaScript ...........................................................................................................................12

The REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop) .................................................................................................................13

Running CoffeeScript through Browser .............................................................................................................14

4. COFFEESCRIPT – SYNTAX ............................................................................................................. 15

CoffeeScript Statements ...................................................................................................................................15

ii
 CoffeeScript

CoffeeScript Variables (No var Keyword) ..........................................................................................................15

No Parentheses .................................................................................................................................................15

No Curly Braces .................................................................................................................................................16

CoffeeScript Comments ....................................................................................................................................16

CoffeeScript Reserved keywords .......................................................................................................................17

5. COFFEESCRIPT – DATA TYPES ...................................................................................................... 18

CoffeeScript Data Types ....................................................................................................................................18

6. COFFEESCRIPT – VARIABLES ........................................................................................................ 19

CoffeeScript Variables .......................................................................................................................................19

Variable Scope ..................................................................................................................................................19

The Problem with Variables in JavaScript ..........................................................................................................20

Variable Scope in CoffeeScript ..........................................................................................................................20

CoffeeScript Variable Names (Literals) ..............................................................................................................21

7. COFFEESCRIPT – OPERATORS ...................................................................................................... 22

CoffeeScript Aliases ..........................................................................................................................................22

Arithmetic Operators ........................................................................................................................................22

Comparison Operators ......................................................................................................................................25

Logical Operators ..............................................................................................................................................30

Bitwise Operators .............................................................................................................................................34

Assignment Operators ......................................................................................................................................37

Equality Operator in CoffeeScript ......................................................................................................................40

The existential Operator ...................................................................................................................................41

Chained Comparisons .......................................................................................................................................42

CoffeeScript Aliases ..........................................................................................................................................42

8. COFFEESCRIPT – CONDITIONALS ................................................................................................. 46

if Statement ......................................................................................................................................................47

if…else Statement .............................................................................................................................................49

iii
 CoffeeScript

unless Statement ..............................................................................................................................................50

unless…else Statement .....................................................................................................................................52

switch Statement ..............................................................................................................................................54

Switch Statement in CoffeeScript ......................................................................................................................54

Multiple values for when clause .......................................................................................................................57

The then Keyword in CoffeeScript .....................................................................................................................58

if…then Statement ............................................................................................................................................59

if…then…else Statement ...................................................................................................................................60

unless…then Statement ....................................................................................................................................61

unless-then…else Statement .............................................................................................................................62

postfix if and postfix unless Statements ............................................................................................................63

9. COFFEESCRIPT – LOOPS ............................................................................................................... 65

The while loop in CoffeeScript ..........................................................................................................................65

Variants of while ...............................................................................................................................................67

The until Variant of while ..................................................................................................................................67

The loop Variant of while ..................................................................................................................................69

10. COFFEESCRIPT – COMPREHENSIONS ........................................................................................... 72

for…in Comprehensions ....................................................................................................................................72

for…of Comprehensions ....................................................................................................................................73

list Comprehensions..........................................................................................................................................74

Index of comprehensions ..................................................................................................................................77

Postfix form of comprehensions .......................................................................................................................78

Postfix for..in comprehension ...........................................................................................................................78

Assigning to a variable ......................................................................................................................................80

The by keyword ................................................................................................................................................81

11. COFFEESCRIPT – FUNCTIONS ....................................................................................................... 83

Functions in CoffeeScript ..................................................................................................................................83

iv
 CoffeeScript

Defining a Function ...........................................................................................................................................83

Multi-line Functions ..........................................................................................................................................84

Functions with Arguments ................................................................................................................................85

Invoking a Function ...........................................................................................................................................85

Invoking Functions with Arguments ..................................................................................................................86

Default Arguments ............................................................................................................................................87

12. COFFEESCRIPT – STRINGS ............................................................................................................ 90

String Concatenation ........................................................................................................................................90

String Interpolation ...........................................................................................................................................91

JavaScript String Object ....................................................................................................................................92

charAt method ..................................................................................................................................................93

charCodeAt Method..........................................................................................................................................95

concat() Method ...............................................................................................................................................96

indexOf() Method .............................................................................................................................................98

lastIndexOf() Method........................................................................................................................................99

localeCompare() Method ................................................................................................................................100

match() Method ..............................................................................................................................................104

search() Method .............................................................................................................................................105

slice() Method .................................................................................................................................................107

split() Method .................................................................................................................................................108

substr() Method ..............................................................................................................................................109

toLocaleLowerCase() method ..........................................................................................................................111

toLocaleUpperCase() method..........................................................................................................................112

toLowerCase() method....................................................................................................................................113

toUpperCase() method ...................................................................................................................................114

13. COFFEESCRIPT – ARRAYS ........................................................................................................... 116

New line instead of comma.............................................................................................................................116

v
 CoffeeScript

Comprehensions over arrays...........................................................................................................................117

14. COFFEESCRIPT – OBJECTS .......................................................................................................... 119

Indentations instead of curly braces ...............................................................................................................120

Nested objects ................................................................................................................................................120

Comprehensions over objects .........................................................................................................................121

Arrays of Objects.............................................................................................................................................122

Reserved Keywords .........................................................................................................................................124

15. COFFEESCRIPT – RANGES .......................................................................................................... 126

Excluding the end Value ..................................................................................................................................127

Using Ranges with Variables ...........................................................................................................................128

Ranges with Arrays .........................................................................................................................................129

Ranges with Strings .........................................................................................................................................131

Comprehensions over Ranges .........................................................................................................................132

16. COFFEESCRIPT – SPLAT .............................................................................................................. 134

Calling Functions using Splats .........................................................................................................................136

Splats with a Tailing Argument .......................................................................................................................139

Comprehensions with Splats ...........................................................................................................................141

17. COFFEESCRIPT – DATE ............................................................................................................... 144

getDate() Method ...........................................................................................................................................146

getDay() Method.............................................................................................................................................147

getFullYear() Method ......................................................................................................................................148

getHours() Method .........................................................................................................................................149

getMilliseconds() Method ...............................................................................................................................150

getMinutes() Method......................................................................................................................................151

getMonth() Method ........................................................................................................................................152

getUTCSeconds() Method ...............................................................................................................................153

getTime() Method ...........................................................................................................................................154

vi
 CoffeeScript

getTimezoneOffset() Method ..........................................................................................................................155

getUTCDate() Method .....................................................................................................................................156

getUTCDay() method ......................................................................................................................................157

getUTCFullYear() Method................................................................................................................................158

getUTCHours() Method ...................................................................................................................................159

getUTCMilliseconds() Method .........................................................................................................................160

getUTCMinutes() Method ...............................................................................................................................161

getUTCMonth() Method..................................................................................................................................162

getUTCSeconds() Method ...............................................................................................................................163

getYear() Method............................................................................................................................................164

setDate() Method ...........................................................................................................................................165

setFullYear() Method ......................................................................................................................................166

setHours() Method..........................................................................................................................................167

setMilliseconds() Method ...............................................................................................................................168

setMinutes() Method ......................................................................................................................................169

setMonth() Method ........................................................................................................................................170

setSeconds() Method ......................................................................................................................................171

setTime() Method ...........................................................................................................................................173

setUTCDate() Method .....................................................................................................................................174

setUTCFullYear() Method ................................................................................................................................175

setUTCHours() Method ...................................................................................................................................176

setUTCMilliseconds() Method .........................................................................................................................178

setUTCMinutes() Method................................................................................................................................179

setUTCMonth() Method ..................................................................................................................................180

setUTCSeconds() Method ................................................................................................................................181

setYear() Method ............................................................................................................................................183

toDateString() Method ....................................................................................................................................184

toLocaleDateString() Method ..........................................................................................................................185

vii
 CoffeeScript

toLocaleString() Method .................................................................................................................................186

toLocaleTimeString() Method .........................................................................................................................187

toTimeString() Method ...................................................................................................................................188

toTimeString Method ......................................................................................................................................189

18. COFFEESCRIPT – MATH.............................................................................................................. 191

Math Methods ................................................................................................................................................193

abs() Method ..................................................................................................................................................194

acos() Method .................................................................................................................................................196

asin() Method .................................................................................................................................................197

atan() Method.................................................................................................................................................198

atan2() Method ...............................................................................................................................................200

ceil() Method ..................................................................................................................................................201

cos() Method...................................................................................................................................................203

exp() Method ..................................................................................................................................................204

floor() Method ................................................................................................................................................206

log() Method ...................................................................................................................................................207

max() Method .................................................................................................................................................209

min() Method..................................................................................................................................................210

pow() Method .................................................................................................................................................212

random() Method ...........................................................................................................................................213

round() Method ..............................................................................................................................................215

sin() Method ...................................................................................................................................................216

sqrt() Method .................................................................................................................................................218

tan() Method ..................................................................................................................................................219

19. COFFEESCRIPT – EXCEPTION HANDLING.................................................................................... 222

Exceptions in CoffeeScript ...............................................................................................................................222

The finally block ..............................................................................................................................................224

viii
 CoffeeScript

The throw Statement ......................................................................................................................................226

20. COFFEESCRIPT – REGULAR EXPRESSIONS .................................................................................. 228

Regular Expressions in CoffeeScript ................................................................................................................228

heregex ...........................................................................................................................................................229

21. COFFEESCRIPT – CLASSES AND INHERITANCE ............................................................................ 231

Classes in CoffeeScript ....................................................................................................................................231

Instantiating a class.........................................................................................................................................231

Defining a Constructor ....................................................................................................................................232

Static Properties..............................................................................................................................................235

Inheritance......................................................................................................................................................236

The Fat Arrow (=>) ..........................................................................................................................................238

22. COFFEESCRIPT – AJAX ................................................................................................................ 239

CoffeeScript with Ajax .....................................................................................................................................240

23. COFFEESCRIPT – JQUERY ........................................................................................................... 242

Using CoffeeScript with jQuery .......................................................................................................................242

What is Callback? ............................................................................................................................................244

24. COFFEESCRIPT – MANGODB ...................................................................................................... 247

Installation ......................................................................................................................................................247

Connecting to MangoDB .................................................................................................................................247

Creating a Collection .......................................................................................................................................248

Inserting Documents .......................................................................................................................................249

Reading Documents ........................................................................................................................................250

Updating Documents ......................................................................................................................................253

Deleting Documents........................................................................................................................................254

25. COFFEESCRIPT – SQLITE............................................................................................................. 256

Installation ......................................................................................................................................................256

ix
 CoffeeScript

Connecting to Database ..................................................................................................................................256

Creating a Table ..............................................................................................................................................257

Inserting / Creating Data .................................................................................................................................257

Reading / Retrieving Data ...............................................................................................................................258

Updating Data .................................................................................................................................................259

Deleting Data ..................................................................................................................................................260

x
 1. COFFEESCRIPT – OVERVIEW CoffeeScript

At present, JavaScript is the fastest mainstream dynamic language available, and it is known
as the lingua franca of the web. It is developed by Brendan Eich in the year of 1995 in 10
days.

Because of its effective features, JavaScript became popular and went global quickly. It was
there in lab for a very less time, which was not enough to polish the language. May be for
this reason, inspite of its good parts, JavaScript has a bunch of design errors and it bagged a
bad reputation of being a quirky language.

What is CoffeeScript ?
CoffeeScript is a lightweight language based on Ruby and Python which transcompiles
(compiles from one source language to another) into JavaScript. It provides better syntax
avoiding the quirky parts of JavaScript, still retaining the flexibility and beauty of the
language.

Advantages of CoffeeScript
Following are the advantages of CoffeeScript −

 Easily understandable − CoffeeScript is a shorthand form of JavaScript, its syntax

is pretty simple compared to JavaScript. Using CoffeeScript, we can write clean, clear,
and easily understandable codes.

 Write less do more − For a huge code in JavaScript, we need comparatively very
less number of lines of CoffeeScript.

 Reliable − CoffeeScript is a safe and reliable programming language to write dynamic

programs.

 Readable and maintainable − CoffeeScript provides aliases for most of the

operators which makes the code readable. It is also easy to maintain the programs
written in CoffeeScript.

 Class-based inheritance − JavaScript does not have classes. Instead of them, it

provides powerful but confusing prototypes. Unlike JavaScript, we can create classes
and inherit them in CoffeeScript. In addition to this, it also provides instance and static
properties as well as mixins. It uses JavaScript's native prototype to create classes.

 No var keyword − There is no need to use the var keyword to create a variable in
CoffeeScript, thus we can avoid the accidental or unwanted scope deceleration.

 Avoids problematic symbols − There is no need to use the problematic semicolons

and parenthesis in CoffeeScript. Instead of curly braces, we can use whitespaces to
differentiate the block codes like functions, loops, etc.

11
 CoffeeScript

 Extensive library support − In CoffeeScript, we can use the libraries of JavaScript

and vice versa. Therefore, we have access to a rich set of libraries while working with
CoffeeScript.

History of CoffeeScript
 CoffeeScript is developed by Jeremy Ashkenas. It was first committed in Git On
December 13, 2009.

 Originally the compiler of the CoffeeScript was written in Ruby language.

 In March 2010, the CoffeeScript compiler was replaced; this time instead of Ruby, they
used CoffeeScript itself.

 And in the same year, CoffeeScript 1.0 was released and at the time of release, it was
one of the most wanted projects of the Git hub.

Limitations of CoffeeScript
Sensitive to whitespaces − CoffeeScript is very sensitive to whitespaces, so programmers
need to be very careful while providing indentations. If we do not maintain proper indentation,
the entire code may go wrong.

TutorialsPoint's CoffeeScript IDE

You can compile CoffeeScript files using Tutorials Point's CoffeeScript compiler provided in
our Coding Ground section (http://www.tutorialspoint.com/codingground.htm). Follow the
steps given below to use our CoffeeScript compiler.

Step 1
Click on the following link www.tutorialspoint.com. You will be directed to the homepage of
our website.

Step 2
Click on the button named CODING GROUND that is located at the top right corner of the
homepage as highlighted in the snapshot given below.

12
 CoffeeScript

Step 3
This will lead to our CODING GROUND section which provides online terminals and IDEs for
about 135 programming languages. Open CoffeeScript IDE in the Online IDEs section which
is shown in the following snapshot.

13
 CoffeeScript

Step 4
If you paste your CoffeeScript code in main.coffee (You can change the file name) and click
the Preview button, then you can see the compiled JavaScript in the console as shown in the
following snapshot.

14
 2. COFFEESCRIPT – ENVIRONMENT CoffeeScript

The Compiler of the latest versions of CoffeeScript is written in CoffeeScript itself. To run
CoffeeScript files in your system without a browser, you need a JavaScript runtime.

Node.js
Node.js is a JavaScript framework which is used to develop network server applications. It
also acts as a bridge between JavaScript and the Operating System.

The command-line version of CoffeeScript is distributed as a Node.js package. Therefore, to

install CoffeeScript (command-line) in your system, you first need install node.js.

Installing Node.js
Here are the steps to download and install Node.js in your system.

Step 1
Visit the nodejs homepage and download its stable version for windows by clicking on the
button hilighted in the snapshot given below.

15
 CoffeeScript

Step 2
On clicking, a .msc file named node-v5.50-x64 will be downloaded into your system, run
the downloaded file to start the Node.js set-up. Here is the snapshot of the Welcome page of
No.js set-up wizard.

16
 CoffeeScript

Step 3
Click on the Next button in the Welcome page of the Node.js set-up wizard which will lead
you to the End-user License Agreement page. Accept the license agreement and click on the
Next button as shown below.

17
 CoffeeScript

Step 4
On the next page, you need to set the destination folder to the path where you want to install
Node.js. Change the path to the required folder and click on the Next button.

Step 5
In the Custom setup page, select the Node.js runtime to install node.exe file and click Next.

18
 CoffeeScript

Step 6
Finally, click on the Install button which will start the Node.js installation.

19
 CoffeeScript

Click on the Finish button of the Node.js set-up wizard as shown below to complete the Node.js
installation.

20
 CoffeeScript

Installing CoffeeScript
Node.js provides you a command prompt (Node.js command prompt). You can install
CoffeeScript globally by entering the following command in it.

c:\> npm install -g coffeescript

On executing the the above command, CoffeeScript will be installed in your system by
producing the following output

21
 CoffeeScript

Verification
You can verify the installation of the CoffeeScript by typing the following command.

c:\> coffee -v

On successful installation, this command gives you the version of CoffeeScript as shown
below.

22
3. COFFEESCRIPT – COMMAND-LINE UTILITY CoffeeScript

On installing CoffeeScript on Node.js, we can access the coffee-command line utility. In

here, the coffee command is the key command. Using various options of this command, we
can compile and execute the CoffeeScript files.

You can see the list of options of the coffee command using its -h or --help option. Open
the Node.js command prompt and execute the following command in it.

c:\>coffee -help

This command gives you the list of various options of the coffee, along with the description
of the operation performed by each of them as shown below.

23
 CoffeeScript

Compiling the CoffeeScript Code

The CoffeeScript files are saved with the extension .coffee. You can compile these files using
the -c or --compile option of the coffee command as shown below.

c:\>coffee -c filename.coffee

Example
Suppose there is a file in your system with the following CoffeeScript code which prints a
message on the console.

name = "Raju"
console.log "Hello"+name+" Welcome to Tutorilspoint"

Note − The console.log() function prints the given string on the consloe.

To compile the above code, save it in a file with the name sample.coffee. Open the Node.js
command prompt. Browse through the path where you have saved the file and compile it
using the -c option of the coffee command of the coffee command-line utility as shown
below.

c:\> coffee -c sample.coffee

On executing the above command, the CoffeeScript compiler compiles the given file
(sample.coffee) and saves it in the current location with a name sample.js as shown below.

If you open the sample.js file, you can observe the generated JavaScript as shown below.

// Generated by CoffeeScript 1.10.0

24
 CoffeeScript

(function() {
var name;
name = "Raju";
console.log("Hello " + name + " Welcome to Tutorilspoint");

}).call(this);

Executing the CoffeeScript code

You can execute a CoffeeScript file by simply passing the file name to the coffee command in
the Node.js command prompt as follows.

c:\> coffee sample.coffee

Example
For example, let us execute the sample.coffee file. For this, open the Node.js command
prompt. Browse through the path where you have saved the file and execute the file by
directly passing its name to the coffee command as shown below.

Watch and Compile

In some scenarios, there is a chance that we do a lot of changes to our scripts. Using the –w
option of the coffee command, you watch your scripts for changes.

You can watch and compile a file simultaneously using the -wc option as shown below. When
we use this option, the file will be recompiled each time you make changes in your script.

c:\>coffee -wc file_name

Example
Suppose we have compiled a file named sample.coffee using the -wc option and we modified
the script thrice. Each time we change the script, the .coffee file is recompiled leaving the
Node.js command prompt as shown below.
25
 CoffeeScript

Setting the Output Directory

Using the -o option, we can set the output directory to place the compiled JavaScript files as
shown below.

c:\>coffee -o "Required path where we want our .js files" file_name

Example
Let us save the JavaScript code of the sample.coffee file in a folder named data in the E drive
using the -o option by executing the following command in the command prompt.

c:\>coffee -o E://data sample.coffee

Following is the snapshot of the given folder after executing the above command. Here you
can observe the JavaScript file of the sample.coffee

26
 CoffeeScript

Print the Compiled JavaScript

If we want to print the compiled javascript on the console itself, we have to use the -p option
of the coffee command as shown below.

c:\>coffee -p file_name

Example
For example, you can print the compiled JavaScript code of the sample.coffee file on the
console using the -p option as shown below.

The REPL (Read Evaluate Print Loop)

CoffeeScript provides you an REPL-interactive shell. This shell is used to evaluate the
CoffeeScript expressions. You can type any CoffeeScript code in this shell and get the result
immediately. You can open REPL by executing the coffee command without any options as
shown below.

Using this shell, we can assign values to variables, create functions, and evaluate results. As
shown in the following screenshot, if we call functions in REPL, it prints the value of the

27
 CoffeeScript

function. If we give an expression to it, it evaluates and prints the result of the expression.
And if we simply type the statements in it, it prints the value of the last statement.

In RPEL, you can access multiple line mode by pressing ctrl+v where you can evaluate the
code with multiple lines (like functions) and you can get back to REPL mode from it by
pressing ctrl+v again. Here is an example usage of the multi line mode.

Running CoffeeScript through Browser

We can run CoffeeScript using the <script> tag of the HTML just like JavaScript as shown
below.

<script src="http://jashkenas.github.com/coffee-script/extras/coffee-script.js"
type="text/javascript" charset="utf-8"></script>
<script type="text/coffeescript">
# Some CoffeeScript
</script>

28
 CoffeeScript

But for this, we have to import the library in each application and the CoffeeScript code will
be interpreted line by line before the output is shown. This will slow down your applications,
therefore this approach is not recommended.

Therefore, to use CoffeeScript in your applications, you need to pre-compile them using the
Coffee command-line utility and then you can use the generated JavaScript in your
applications.

29
 CoffeeScript

End of ebook preview

If you liked what you saw…
Buy it from our store @ https://store.tutorialspoint.com

30