JavaScript Numeric Separators

By  on  

Writing good code is important -- writing code that's easily human readable is a next level skill. It's not often that APIs are introduced whose seemingly only useful function is making code more readable, but let me introduce you to JavaScript numeric separators: an API that lets developers use underscores to make numbers more readable!

Consider the following number in your code:

// No commas for numbers in JavaScript
const oneHundredThousand = 100000;

Large numbers have always been difficult to mentally parse for engineers, so using underscores to make code more readable is a total win:

const oneMillion = 1_000_000; // 1000000
const decimals = 1_000_00.01_02_03 // 100000.010203

The only real rule with numeric separators is that the number cannot start or end with an underscore.

Numeric separators within JavaScript seem like spec creators gifting developers a feature. As an engineer, I'll take all I can get. You never stop learning in the world of JavaScript!

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 3D Folding Animation

    Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Truly Responsive Images with responsive-images.js

    Responsive web design is something you hear a lot about these days. The moment I really started to get into responsive design was a few months ago when I started to realise that 'responsive' is not just about scaling your websites to the size of your...

  • By
    iPhone-Style Passwords Using MooTools PassShark

    Every once in a while I come across a plugin that blows me out of the water and the most recent culprit is PassShark: a MooTools plugin that duplicates the iPhone's method of showing/hiding the last character in a password field. This gem of...

Discussion

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