Duplicated Argument Names

By  on  

Oftentimes we override or monkey patch functions and, in many cases, there are arguments we don't care too much about. A common practice for those arguments is using _ for argument names -- it's a generally accepted and known practice for "this isn't important". I started thinking about multiple useless arguments and if you could use the same name for the sake of minification -- you can.

So what happens when you use the same argument name more than once? An error? Uses the first value? The last value? Let's have a look:

function myFunc(_, _, _) {
  console.log("_: ", _);
}

myFunc(1, 2, 3);

// >> 3

The duplicated argument is given the value of the last provided argument. If, however, "use strict" is used, an error will be thrown.

For some reason I expected an error when using an argument name more than once. On the other end, you can change argument values so I shouldn't be surprised. Anyway, happy coding!

Recent Features

  • By
    Page Visibility API

    One event that's always been lacking within the document is a signal for when the user is looking at a given tab, or another tab. When does the user switch off our site to look at something else? When do they come back?

  • By
    CSS Filters

    CSS filter support recently landed within WebKit nightlies. CSS filters provide a method for modifying the rendering of a basic DOM element, image, or video. CSS filters allow for blurring, warping, and modifying the color intensity of elements. Let's have...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Elegant Overflow with CSS Ellipsis

    Overflow with text is always a big issue, especially in a programmatic environment. There's always only so much space but variable content to add into that space. I was recently working on a table for displaying user information and noticed that longer strings were...

  • By
    Custom Scrollbars in WebKit

    Before each of the browser vendors we like was providing unique CSS controls, Internet Explorer was setting the tone.  One such example is IE's early implementation of CSS filters. Internet Explorer was also the first browser that allowed developers to, for better or worse, customize...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!