Part 1: JavaScript Basics

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 1.JAVASCRIPT – OVERVIEW

What is JavaScript?
Javascript is a dynamic computer programming language. It is lightweight and most
commonly used as a part of web pages, whose implementations allow client-side
script to interact with the user and make dynamic pages. It is an interpreted
programming language with object-oriented capabilities.

JavaScript was first known as LiveScript, but Netscape changed its name to
JavaScript, possibly because of the excitement being generated by Java. JavaScript
made its first appearance in Netscape 2.0 in 1995 with the name LiveScript. The
general-purpose core of the language has been embedded in Netscape, Internet
Explorer, and other web browsers.

The ECMA-262 Specification defined a standard version of the core JavaScript

language.

 JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language.

 Designed for creating network-centric applications.

 Complementary to and integrated with Java.

 Complementary to and integrated with HTML.

 Open and cross-platform.

Client-Side JavaScript
Client-side JavaScript is the most common form of the language. The script should
be included in or referenced by an HTML document for the code to be interpreted by
the browser.

It means that a web page need not be a static HTML, but can include programs that
interact with the user, control the browser, and dynamically create HTML content.

The JavaScript client-side mechanism provides many advantages over traditional CGI
server-side scripts. For example, you might use JavaScript to check if the user has
entered a valid e-mail address in a form field.

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The JavaScript code is executed when the user submits the form, and only if all the
entries are valid, they would be submitted to the Web Server.

JavaScript can be used to trap user-initiated events such as button clicks, link
navigation, and other actions that the user initiates explicitly or implicitly.

Advantages of JavaScript
The merits of using JavaScript are:

 Less server interaction: You can validate user input before sending the page
off to the server. This saves server traffic, which means less load on your
server.

 Immediate feedback to the visitors: They don't have to wait for a page
reload to see if they have forgotten to enter something.

 Increased interactivity: You can create interfaces that react when the user
hovers over them with a mouse or activates them via the keyboard.

 Richer interfaces: You can use JavaScript to include such items as drag-and-
drop components and sliders to give a Rich Interface to your site visitors.

Limitations of JavaScript
We cannot treat JavaScript as a full-fledged programming language. It lacks the
following important features:

 Client-side JavaScript does not allow the reading or writing of files. This has
been kept for security reason.

 JavaScript cannot be used for networking applications because there is no such

support available.

 JavaScript doesn't have any multithreading or multiprocessor capabilities.

Once again, JavaScript is a lightweight, interpreted programming language that

allows you to build interactivity into otherwise static HTML pages.

JavaScript Development Tools

One of major strengths of JavaScript is that it does not require expensive
development tools. You can start with a simple text editor such as Notepad. Since it

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is an interpreted language inside the context of a web browser, you don't even need
to buy a compiler.

To make our life simpler, various vendors have come up with very nice JavaScript
editing tools. Some of them are listed here:

 Microsoft FrontPage: Microsoft has developed a popular HTML editor called

FrontPage. FrontPage also provides web developers with a number of
JavaScript tools to assist in the creation of interactive websites.

 Macromedia Dreamweaver MX: Macromedia Dreamweaver MX is a very

popular HTML and JavaScript editor in the professional web development
crowd. It provides several handy prebuilt JavaScript components, integrates
well with databases, and conforms to new standards such as XHTML and XML.

 Macromedia HomeSite 5: HomeSite 5 is a well-liked HTML and JavaScript

editor from Macromedia that can be used to manage personal websites
effectively.

Where is JavaScript Today?

The ECMAScript Edition 5 standard will be the first update to be released in over four
years. JavaScript 2.0 conforms to Edition 5 of the ECMAScript standard, and the
difference between the two is extremely minor.

The specification for JavaScript 2.0 can be found on the following site:
http://www.ecmascript.org/

Today, Netscape's JavaScript and Microsoft's JScript conform to the ECMAScript

standard, although both the languages still support the features that are not a part
of the standard.

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 2.JAVASCRIPT – SYNTAX

JavaScript can be implemented using JavaScript statements that are placed within
the <script>... </script> HTML tags in a web page.

You can place the <script> tags, containing your JavaScript, anywhere within you
web page, but it is normally recommended that you should keep it within the <head>
tags.

The <script> tag alerts the browser program to start interpreting all the text between
these tags as a script. A simple syntax of your JavaScript will appear as follows.

<script ...>
JavaScript code
</script>

The script tag takes two important attributes:

 Language: This attribute specifies what scripting language you are using.
Typically, its value will be javascript. Although recent versions of HTML (and
XHTML, its successor) have phased out the use of this attribute.

 Type: This attribute is what is now recommended to indicate the scripting

language in use and its value should be set to "text/javascript".

So your JavaScript syntax will look as follows.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

JavaScript code
</script>

Your First JavaScript Code

Let us take a sample example to print out "Hello World". We added an optional HTML
comment that surrounds our JavaScript code. This is to save our code from a browser
that does not support JavaScript. The comment ends with a "//-->". Here "//"
signifies a comment in JavaScript, so we add that to prevent a browser from reading

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the end of the HTML comment as a piece of JavaScript code. Next, we call a
function document.write which writes a string into our HTML document.

This function can be used to write text, HTML, or both. Take a look at the following
code.

<html>
<body>
<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">
<!--
document.write ("Hello World!")
//-->
</script>
</body>
</html>

This code will produce the following result:

Hello World!

Whitespace and Line Breaks

JavaScript ignores spaces, tabs, and newlines that appear in JavaScript programs.
You can use spaces, tabs, and newlines freely in your program and you are free to
format and indent your programs in a neat and consistent way that makes the code
easy to read and understand.

Semicolons are Optional

Simple statements in JavaScript are generally followed by a semicolon character, just
as they are in C, C++, and Java. JavaScript, however, allows you to omit this
semicolon if each of your statements are placed on a separate line. For example, the
following code could be written without semicolons.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

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 <!--
var1 = 10
var2 = 20
//-->
</script>

But when formatted in a single line as follows, you must use semicolons:

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

<!--
var1 = 10; var2 = 20;
//-->
</script>

Note: It is a good programming practice to use semicolons.

Case Sensitivity
JavaScript is a case-sensitive language. This means that the language keywords,
variables, function names, and any other identifiers must always be typed with a
consistent capitalization of letters.

So the identifiers Time and TIME will convey different meanings in JavaScript.

NOTE: Care should be taken while writing variable and function names in JavaScript.

Comments in JavaScript
JavaScript supports both C-style and C++-style comments. Thus:

 Any text between a // and the end of a line is treated as a comment and is
ignored by JavaScript.

 Any text between the characters /* and */ is treated as a comment. This may
span multiple lines.

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  JavaScript also recognizes the HTML comment opening sequence <!--.
JavaScript treats this as a single-line comment, just as it does the // comment.

 The HTML comment closing sequence --> is not recognized by JavaScript so it

should be written as //-->.

Example
The following example shows how to use comments in JavaScript.

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

<!--

// This is a comment. It is similar to comments in C++

/*
* This is a multiline comment in JavaScript
* It is very similar to comments in C Programming
*/
//-->
</script>

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 3.JAVASCRIPT – ENABLING

All the modern browsers come with built-in support for JavaScript. Frequently, you
may need to enable or disable this support manually. This chapter explains the
procedure of enabling and disabling JavaScript support in your browsers: Internet
Explorer, Firefox, chrome, and Opera.

JavaScript in Internet Explorer

Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Internet Explorer:

 Follow Tools -> Internet Options from the menu.

 Select Security tab from the dialog box.

 Click the Custom Level button.

 Scroll down till you find the Scripting option.

 Select Enable radio button under Active scripting.

 Finally click OK and come out.

To disable JavaScript support in your Internet Explorer, you need to select Disable
radio button under Active scripting.

JavaScript in Firefox
Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Firefox:

 Open a new tab -> type about: config in the address bar.

 Then you will find the warning dialog. Select I’ll be careful, I promise!

 Then you will find the list of configure options in the browser.

 In the search bar, type javascript.enabled.

 There you will find the option to enable or disable javascript by right-clicking
on the value of that option -> select toggle.

If javascript.enabled is true; it converts to false upon clicking toogle. If javascript is

disabled; it gets enabled upon clicking toggle.
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JavaScript in Chrome
Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Chrome:

 Click the Chrome menu at the top right hand corner of your browser.

 Select Settings.

 Click Show advanced settings at the end of the page.

 Under the Privacy section, click the Content settings button.

 In the "Javascript" section, select "Do not allow any site to run JavaScript"
or "Allow all sites to run JavaScript (recommended)".

JavaScript in Opera
Here are the steps to turn on or turn off JavaScript in Opera:

 Follow Tools-> Preferences from the menu.

 Select Advanced option from the dialog box.

 Select Content from the listed items.

 Select Enable JavaScript checkbox.

 Finally click OK and come out.

To disable JavaScript support in Opera, you should not select the Enable
JavaScript checkbox.

Warning for Non-JavaScript Browsers

If you have to do something important using JavaScript, then you can display a
warning message to the user using <noscript> tags.

You can add a noscript block immediately after the script block as follows:

<html>
<body>

<script language="javascript" type="text/javascript">

<!--
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