always end a javascript statement with a semi-colon
Although it is optional, I recommend always ending javascript statements with colons.
A very good reason for this is that some packers (one, two) reduce the file size by removing excessive white-space – including carriage returns.
For example, the following code:
var a=3 var b=4
– will be packed to this:
var a=3 var b=4
The above line is nonsense. If semi-colons had been used, then the statements would still be parseable.
Beware of this gotcha: when you create a function dynamically, you must still place a semi-colon after the closing ‘}’.
For instance, this code:
this.onreadystatechange=function(){ return false; } return true;
– will not parse after being stripped of its carriage returns. You must rewrite it like this:
this.onreadystatechange=function(){ return false; }; return true;
Oh – and for those people that complain that packed source is harder to read and maintain than non-packed – always keep a copy of the original code in a /source
directory. Every JavaScript library that I know of uses this scheme, so it should be good enough for anyone.
Pingback: » addEvent winner announced « klog