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name. Note that they don't over write them, they over ride them—meaning that you can't
access the overridden values. The following code demonstrates this point:
window.onload
var scaleX = 0.0;
document.getElementById("Div4").onclick = function () {
var scaleX = -3;
alert(scaleX);
}
function scaleDiv() {
//code to scale the Div by a factor of scaleX
}
In this code, if your intention is to use the scaleX variable declared globally within the
scaleDiv function, the results should be unexpected. That's because the function assigned to
the onclick event handler also declares a variable named scaleX . The value in the alert window
within the onClick function is -3, not 0.0, and when the scaleDiv function accesses the scaleX
variable, the value is 0.0. Scoping problems such as these highlight why you must always pro-
vide meaningful names to variables. Meaningful names can help prevent accidentally naming
variables the same thing.
Avoiding using the global namespace
The global namespace is where all the native JavaScript libraries live. In Internet Explorer, the
window object references the global namespace. Everything this object exposes is global.
The global namespace has far more functionality than this topic can cover; however, you've
already seen some examples of the objects in the global namespace used in this chapter,
including the Web Storage API and the Geolocation API. The global namespace includes other
nested namespaces, such as Math, WebSocket, and JSON.
The global namespace is available to all code within an application session. With the
increasing number of third-party libraries in use, and as applications become more complex
and require the use of such libraries, the potential for naming conflicts increases. Names of
classes within a namespace must be unique. If multiple developers define a namespace with
the same name, the JavaScript runtime can't identify which namespace they intended to use.
This is why keeping your objects out of the global namespace is important.
One strategy to avoid name collisions is to create your own namespaces for your JavaScript
libraries. One pattern to consider using to create unique namespace names is the name of
the domain in reverse, such as com.microsoft . Because domain names are unique, this pattern
 
 
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