This Ecma Standard defines the ECMAScript 2016 Language. It is the seventh edition of the ECMAScript Language Specification. Since publication of the first edition in 1997, ECMAScript has grown to be one of the world's most widely used general purpose programming languages. It is best known as the language embedded in web browsers but has also been widely adopted for server and embedded applications.
ECMAScript is based on several originating technologies, the most well-known being JavaScript (Netscape) and JScript (Microsoft). The language was invented by Brendan Eich at Netscape and first appeared in that company's Navigator 2.0 browser. It has appeared in all subsequent browsers from Netscape and in all browsers from Microsoft starting with Internet Explorer 3.0.
The development of the ECMAScript Language Specification started in November 1996. The first edition of this Ecma Standard was adopted by the Ecma General Assembly of June 1997.
That Ecma Standard was submitted to ISO/IEC JTC 1 for adoption under the fast-track procedure, and approved as international standard ISO/IEC 16262, in April 1998. The Ecma General Assembly of June 1998 approved the second edition of ECMA-262 to keep it fully aligned with ISO/IEC 16262. Changes between the first and the second edition are editorial in nature.
The third edition of the Standard introduced powerful regular expressions, better string handling, new control statements, try/catch exception handling, tighter definition of errors, formatting for numeric output and minor changes in anticipation future language growth. The third edition of the ECMAScript standard was adopted by the Ecma General Assembly of December 1999 and published as ISO/IEC 16262:2002 in June 2002.
After publication of the third edition, ECMAScript achieved massive adoption in conjunction with the World Wide Web where it has become the programming language that is supported by essentially all web browsers. Significant work was done to develop a fourth edition of ECMAScript. However, that work was not completed and not published as the fourth edition of ECMAScript but some of it was incorporated into the development of the sixth edition.
The fifth edition of ECMAScript (published as ECMA-262 5th edition) codified de facto interpretations of the language specification that have become common among browser implementations and added support for new features that had emerged since the publication of the third edition. Such features include accessor properties, reflective creation and inspection of objects, program control of property attributes, additional array manipulation functions, support for the JSON object encoding format, and a strict mode that provides enhanced error checking and program security. The Fifth Edition was adopted by the Ecma General Assembly of December 2009.
The fifth Edition was submitted to ISO/IEC JTC 1 for adoption under the fast-track procedure, and approved as international standard ISO/IEC 16262:2011. Edition 5.1 of the ECMAScript Standard incorporated minor corrections and is the same text as ISO/IEC 16262:2011. The 5.1 Edition was adopted by the Ecma General Assembly of June 2011.
Focused development of the sixth edition started in 2009, as the fifth edition was being prepared for publication. However, this was preceded by significant experimentation and language enhancement design efforts dating to the publication of the third edition in 1999. In a very real sense, the completion of the sixth edition is the culmination of a fifteen year effort. The goals for this addition included providing better support for large applications, library creation, and for use of ECMAScript as a compilation target for other languages. Some of its major enhancements included modules, class declarations, lexical block scoping, iterators and generators, promises for asynchronous programming, destructuring patterns, and proper tail calls. The ECMAScript library of built-ins was expanded to support additional data abstractions including maps, sets, and arrays of binary numeric values as well as additional support for Unicode supplemental characters in strings and regular expressions. The built-ins were also made extensible via subclassing. The sixth edition provides the foundation for regular, incremental language and library enhancements. The sixth edition was adopted by the General Assembly of June 2015.
This ECMAScript specification is the first ECMAScript edition released under Ecma TC39's new yearly release cadence and open development process. A plain-text source document was built from the ECMAScript 2015 source document to serve as the base for further development entirely on GitHub. Over the year of this standard's development, hundreds of pull requests and issues were filed representing thousands of bug fixes, editorial fixes and other improvements. Additionally, numerous software tools were developed to aid in this effort including Ecmarkup, Ecmarkdown, and Grammarkdown. This specification also includes support for a new exponentiation operator and adds a new method to Array.prototype called includes.
Dozens of individuals representing many organizations have made very significant contributions within Ecma TC39 to the development of this edition and to the prior editions. In addition, a vibrant community has emerged supporting TC39's ECMAScript efforts. This community has reviewed numerous drafts, filed thousands of bug reports, performed implementation experiments, contributed test suites, and educated the world-wide developer community about ECMAScript. Unfortunately, it is impossible to identify and acknowledge every person and organization who has contributed to this effort.
Allen Wirfs-Brock
ECMA-262, 6th Edition Project Editor
Brian Terlson
ECMA-262, 7th Edition Project Editor
This Standard defines the ECMAScript 2016 general purpose programming language.
A conforming implementation of ECMAScript must provide and support all the types, values, objects, properties, functions, and program syntax and semantics described in this specification.
A conforming implementation of ECMAScript must interpret source text input in conformance with the Unicode Standard, Version 8.0.0 or later and ISO/IEC 10646.
A conforming implementation of ECMAScript that provides an application programming interface that supports programs that need to adapt to the linguistic and cultural conventions used by different human languages and countries must implement the interface defined by the most recent edition of ECMA-402 that is compatible with this specification.
A conforming implementation of ECMAScript may provide additional types, values, objects, properties, and functions beyond those described in this specification. In particular, a conforming implementation of ECMAScript may provide properties not described in this specification, and values for those properties, for objects that are described in this specification.
A conforming implementation of ECMAScript may support program and regular expression syntax not described in this specification. In particular, a conforming implementation of ECMAScript may support program syntax that makes use of the “future reserved words” listed in subclause
A conforming implementation of ECMAScript must not implement any extension that is listed as a Forbidden Extension in subclause
The following referenced documents are indispensable for the application of this document. For dated references, only the edition cited applies. For undated references, the latest edition of the referenced document (including any amendments) applies.
ISO/IEC 10646:2003: Information Technology – Universal Multiple-Octet Coded Character Set (UCS) plus Amendment 1:2005, Amendment 2:2006, Amendment 3:2008, and Amendment 4:2008, plus additional amendments and corrigenda, or successor
ECMA-402, ECMAScript 2015 Internationalization API Specification.
https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-402/
ECMA-404, The JSON Data Interchange Format.
https://www.ecma-international.org/publications-and-standards/standards/ecma-404/
This section contains a non-normative overview of the ECMAScript language.
ECMAScript is an object-oriented programming language for performing computations and manipulating computational objects within a host environment. ECMAScript as defined here is not intended to be computationally self-sufficient; indeed, there are no provisions in this specification for input of external data or output of computed results. Instead, it is expected that the computational environment of an ECMAScript program will provide not only the objects and other facilities described in this specification but also certain environment-specific objects, whose description and behaviour are beyond the scope of this specification except to indicate that they may provide certain properties that can be accessed and certain functions that can be called from an ECMAScript program.
ECMAScript was originally designed to be used as a scripting language, but has become widely used as a general purpose programming language. A scripting language is a programming language that is used to manipulate, customize, and automate the facilities of an existing system. In such systems, useful functionality is already available through a user interface, and the scripting language is a mechanism for exposing that functionality to program control. In this way, the existing system is said to provide a host environment of objects and facilities, which completes the capabilities of the scripting language. A scripting language is intended for use by both professional and non-professional programmers.
ECMAScript was originally designed to be a Web scripting language, providing a mechanism to enliven Web pages in browsers and to perform server computation as part of a Web-based client-server architecture. ECMAScript is now used to provide core scripting capabilities for a variety of host environments. Therefore the core language is specified in this document apart from any particular host environment.
ECMAScript usage has moved beyond simple scripting and it is now used for the full spectrum of programming tasks in many different environments and scales. As the usage of ECMAScript has expanded, so has the features and facilities it provides. ECMAScript is now a fully featured general propose programming language.
Some of the facilities of ECMAScript are similar to those used in other programming languages; in particular C, Java™, Self, and Scheme as described in:
ISO/IEC 9899:1996, Programming Languages – C.
Gosling, James, Bill Joy and Guy Steele. The Java™ Language Specification. Addison Wesley Publishing Co., 1996.
Ungar, David, and Smith, Randall B. Self: The Power of Simplicity. OOPSLA '87 Conference Proceedings, pp. 227-241, Orlando, FL, October 1987.
IEEE Standard for the Scheme Programming Language. IEEE Std 1178-1990.
A web browser provides an ECMAScript host environment for client-side computation including, for instance, objects that represent windows, menus, pop-ups, dialog boxes, text areas, anchors, frames, history, cookies, and input/output. Further, the host environment provides a means to attach scripting code to events such as change of focus, page and image loading, unloading, error and abort, selection, form submission, and mouse actions. Scripting code appears within the HTML and the displayed page is a combination of user interface elements and fixed and computed text and images. The scripting code is reactive to user interaction and there is no need for a main program.
A web server provides a different host environment for server-side computation including objects representing requests, clients, and files; and mechanisms to lock and share data. By using browser-side and server-side scripting together, it is possible to distribute computation between the client and server while providing a customized user interface for a Web-based application.
Each Web browser and server that supports ECMAScript supplies its own host environment, completing the ECMAScript execution environment.
The following is an informal overview of ECMAScript—not all parts of the language are described. This overview is not part of the standard proper.
ECMAScript is object-based: basic language and host facilities are provided by objects, and an ECMAScript program is a cluster of communicating objects. In ECMAScript, an object is a collection of zero or more properties each with attributes that determine how each property can be used—for example, when the Writable attribute for a property is set to
ECMAScript defines a collection of built-in objects that round out the definition of ECMAScript entities. These built-in objects include the Object, Function, Boolean, Symbol, and various Error objects; objects that represent and manipulate numeric values including Math, Number, and Date; the text processing objects String and RegExp; objects that are indexed collections of values including Array and nine different kinds of Typed Arrays whose elements all have a specific numeric data representation; keyed collections including Map and Set objects; objects supporting structured data including the JSON object, ArrayBuffer, and DataView; objects supporting control abstractions including generator functions and Promise objects; and, reflection objects including Proxy and Reflect.
ECMAScript also defines a set of built-in operators. ECMAScript operators include various unary operations, multiplicative operators, additive operators, bitwise shift operators, relational operators, equality operators, binary bitwise operators, binary logical operators, assignment operators, and the comma operator.
Large ECMAScript programs are supported by modules which allow a program to be divided into multiple sequences of statements and declarations. Each module explicitly identifies declarations it uses that need to be provided by other modules and which of its declarations are available for use by other modules.
ECMAScript syntax intentionally resembles Java syntax. ECMAScript syntax is relaxed to enable it to serve as an easy-to-use scripting language. For example, a variable is not required to have its type declared nor are types associated with properties, and defined functions are not required to have their declarations appear textually before calls to them.
Even though ECMAScript includes syntax for class definitions, ECMAScript objects are not fundamentally class-based such as those in C++, Smalltalk, or Java. Instead objects may be created in various ways including via a literal notation or via constructors which create objects and then execute code that initializes all or part of them by assigning initial values to their properties. Each constructor is a function that has a property named "prototype" that is used to implement prototype-based inheritance and shared properties. Objects are created by using constructors in new expressions; for example, new Date(2009,11) creates a new Date object. Invoking a constructor without using new has consequences that depend on the constructor. For example, Date() produces a string representation of the current date and time rather than an object.
Every object created by a constructor has an implicit reference (called the object's prototype) to the value of its constructor's "prototype" property. Furthermore, a prototype may have a non-null implicit reference to its prototype, and so on; this is called the prototype chain. When a reference is made to a property in an object, that reference is to the property of that name in the first object in the prototype chain that contains a property of that name. In other words, first the object mentioned directly is examined for such a property; if that object contains the named property, that is the property to which the reference refers; if that object does not contain the named property, the prototype for that object is examined next; and so on.
In a class-based object-oriented language, in general, state is carried by instances, methods are carried by classes, and inheritance is only of structure and behaviour. In ECMAScript, the state and methods are carried by objects, while structure, behaviour, and state are all inherited.
All objects that do not directly contain a particular property that their prototype contains share that property and its value. Figure 1 illustrates this:
CF is a constructor (and also an object). Five objects have been created by using new expressions: cf1, cf2, cf3, cf4, and cf5. Each of these objects contains properties named q1 and q2. The dashed lines represent the implicit prototype relationship; so, for example, cf3's prototype is CFp. The constructor, CF, has two properties itself, named P1 and P2, which are not visible to CFp, cf1, cf2, cf3, cf4, or cf5. The property named CFP1 in CFp is shared by cf1, cf2, cf3, cf4, and cf5 (but not by CF), as are any properties found in CFp's implicit prototype chain that are not named q1, q2, or CFP1. Notice that there is no implicit prototype link between CF and CFp.
Unlike most class-based object languages, properties can be added to objects dynamically by assigning values to them. That is, constructors are not required to name or assign values to all or any of the constructed object's properties. In the above diagram, one could add a new shared property for cf1, cf2, cf3, cf4, and cf5 by assigning a new value to the property in CFp.
Although ECMAScript objects are not inherently class-based, it is often convenient to define class-like abstractions based upon a common pattern of constructor functions, prototype objects, and methods. The ECMAScript built-in objects themselves follow such a class-like pattern. Beginning with ECMAScript 2015, the ECMAScript language includes syntactic class definitions that permit programmers to concisely define objects that conform to the same class-like abstraction pattern used by the built-in objects.
The ECMAScript Language recognizes the possibility that some users of the language may wish to restrict their usage of some features available in the language. They might do so in the interests of security, to avoid what they consider to be error-prone features, to get enhanced error checking, or for other reasons of their choosing. In support of this possibility, ECMAScript defines a strict variant of the language. The strict variant of the language excludes some specific syntactic and semantic features of the regular ECMAScript language and modifies the detailed semantics of some features. The strict variant also specifies additional error conditions that must be reported by throwing error exceptions in situations that are not specified as errors by the non-strict form of the language.
The strict variant of ECMAScript is commonly referred to as the strict mode of the language. Strict mode selection and use of the strict mode syntax and semantics of ECMAScript is explicitly made at the level of individual ECMAScript source text units. Because strict mode is selected at the level of a syntactic source text unit, strict mode only imposes restrictions that have local effect within such a source text unit. Strict mode does not restrict or modify any aspect of the ECMAScript semantics that must operate consistently across multiple source text units. A complete ECMAScript program may be composed of both strict mode and non-strict mode ECMAScript source text units. In this case, strict mode only applies when actually executing code that is defined within a strict mode source text unit.
In order to conform to this specification, an ECMAScript implementation must implement both the full unrestricted ECMAScript language and the strict variant of the ECMAScript language as defined by this specification. In addition, an implementation must support the combination of unrestricted and strict mode source text units into a single composite program.
For the purposes of this document, the following terms and definitions apply.
set of data values as defined in clause
member of one of the types Undefined, Null, Boolean, Number, Symbol, or String as defined in clause
A primitive value is a datum that is represented directly at the lowest level of the language implementation.
member of the type Object
An object is a collection of properties and has a single prototype object. The prototype may be the null value.
function object that creates and initializes objects
The value of a constructor's prototype property is a prototype object that is used to implement inheritance and shared properties.
object that provides shared properties for other objects
When a constructor creates an object, that object implicitly references the constructor's prototype property for the purpose of resolving property references. The constructor's prototype property can be referenced by the program expression constructor.prototype, and properties added to an object's prototype are shared, through inheritance, by all objects sharing the prototype. Alternatively, a new object may be created with an explicitly specified prototype by using the Object.create built-in function.
object that has the default behaviour for the essential internal methods that must be supported by all objects
object that does not have the default behaviour for one or more of the essential internal methods
Any object that is not an ordinary object is an exotic object.
object whose semantics are defined by this specification
object specified and supplied by an ECMAScript implementation
Standard built-in objects are defined in this specification. An ECMAScript implementation may specify and supply additional kinds of built-in objects. A built-in constructor is a built-in object that is also a constructor.
primitive value used when a variable has not been assigned a value
type whose sole value is the
primitive value that represents the intentional absence of any object value
type whose sole value is the
member of the Boolean type
There are only two Boolean values,
type consisting of the primitive values
member of the Object type that is an instance of the standard built-in Boolean constructor
A Boolean object is created by using the Boolean constructor in a new expression, supplying a Boolean value as an argument. The resulting object has an internal slot whose value is the Boolean value. A Boolean object can be coerced to a Boolean value.
primitive value that is a finite ordered sequence of zero or more 16-bit unsigned integer
A String value is a member of the String type. Each integer value in the sequence usually represents a single 16-bit unit of UTF-16 text. However, ECMAScript does not place any restrictions or requirements on the values except that they must be 16-bit unsigned integers.
set of all possible String values
member of the Object type that is an instance of the standard built-in String constructor
A String object is created by using the String constructor in a new expression, supplying a String value as an argument. The resulting object has an internal slot whose value is the String value. A String object can be coerced to a String value by calling the String constructor as a function (
primitive value corresponding to a double-precision 64-bit binary format IEEE 754-2008 value
A Number value is a member of the Number type and is a direct representation of a number.
set of all possible Number values including the special “Not-a-Number” (NaN) value, positive infinity, and negative infinity
member of the Object type that is an instance of the standard built-in Number constructor
A Number object is created by using the Number constructor in a new expression, supplying a number value as an argument. The resulting object has an internal slot whose value is the number value. A Number object can be coerced to a number value by calling the Number constructor as a function (
number value that is the positive infinite number value
number value that is an IEEE 754-2008 “Not-a-Number” value
primitive value that represents a unique, non-String Object property key
set of all possible Symbol values
member of the Object type that is an instance of the standard built-in Symbol constructor
member of the Object type that may be invoked as a subroutine
In addition to its properties, a function contains executable code and state that determine how it behaves when invoked. A function's code may or may not be written in ECMAScript.
built-in object that is a function
Examples of built-in functions include parseInt and Math.exp. An implementation may provide implementation-dependent built-in functions that are not described in this specification.
part of an object that associates a key (either a String value or a Symbol value) and a value
Depending upon the form of the property the value may be represented either directly as a data value (a primitive value, an object, or a function object) or indirectly by a pair of accessor functions.
function that is the value of a property
When a function is called as a method of an object, the object is passed to the function as its
method that is a built-in function
Standard built-in methods are defined in this specification, and an ECMAScript implementation may specify and provide other additional built-in methods.
internal value that defines some characteristic of a property
property that is directly contained by its object
property of an object that is not an own property but is a property (either own or inherited) of the object's prototype
The remainder of this specification is organized as follows:
Clause 5 defines the notational conventions used throughout the specification.
Clauses 6-9 define the execution environment within which ECMAScript programs operate.
Clauses 10-16 define the actual ECMAScript programming language including its syntactic encoding and the execution semantics of all language features.
Clauses 17-26 define the ECMAScript standard library. It includes the definitions of all of the standard objects that are available for use by ECMAScript programs as they execute.
A context-free grammar consists of a number of productions. Each production has an abstract symbol called a nonterminal as its left-hand side, and a sequence of zero or more nonterminal and terminal symbols as its right-hand side. For each grammar, the terminal symbols are drawn from a specified alphabet.
A chain production is a production that has exactly one nonterminal symbol on its right-hand side along with zero or more terminal symbols.
Starting from a sentence consisting of a single distinguished nonterminal, called the goal symbol, a given context-free grammar specifies a language, namely, the (perhaps infinite) set of possible sequences of terminal symbols that can result from repeatedly replacing any nonterminal in the sequence with a right-hand side of a production for which the nonterminal is the left-hand side.
A lexical grammar for ECMAScript is given in clause
Input elements other than white space and comments form the terminal symbols for the syntactic grammar for ECMAScript and are called ECMAScript tokens. These tokens are the reserved words, identifiers, literals, and punctuators of the ECMAScript language. Moreover, line terminators, although not considered to be tokens, also become part of the stream of input elements and guide the process of automatic semicolon insertion (/*…*/ regardless of whether it spans more than one line) is likewise simply discarded if it contains no line terminator; but if a
A RegExp grammar for ECMAScript is given in
Productions of the lexical and RegExp grammars are distinguished by having two colons “::” as separating punctuation. The lexical and RegExp grammars share some productions.
Another grammar is used for translating Strings into numeric values. This grammar is similar to the part of the lexical grammar having to do with numeric literals and has as its terminal symbols
Productions of the numeric string grammar are distinguished by having three colons “:::” as punctuation.
The syntactic grammar for ECMAScript is given in clauses 11, 12, 13, 14, and 15. This grammar has ECMAScript tokens defined by the lexical grammar as its terminal symbols (
When a stream of code points is to be parsed as an ECMAScript
Productions of the syntactic grammar are distinguished by having just one colon “:” as punctuation.
The syntactic grammar as presented in clauses 12, 13, 14 and 15 is not a complete account of which token sequences are accepted as a correct ECMAScript
In certain cases in order to avoid ambiguities the syntactic grammar uses generalized productions that permit token sequences that do not form a valid ECMAScript
Terminal symbols of the lexical, RegExp, and numeric string grammars are shown in fixed width font, both in the productions of the grammars and throughout this specification whenever the text directly refers to such a terminal symbol. These are to appear in a script exactly as written. All terminal symbol code points specified in this way are to be understood as the appropriate Unicode code points from the Basic Latin range, as opposed to any similar-looking code points from other Unicode ranges.
Nonterminal symbols are shown in italic type. The definition of a nonterminal (also called a “production”) is introduced by the name of the nonterminal being defined followed by one or more colons. (The number of colons indicates to which grammar the production belongs.) One or more alternative right-hand sides for the nonterminal then follow on succeeding lines. For example, the syntactic definition:
states that the nonterminal while, followed by a left parenthesis token, followed by an
states that an
The subscripted suffix “opt”, which may appear after a terminal or nonterminal, indicates an optional symbol. The alternative containing the optional symbol actually specifies two right-hand sides, one that omits the optional element and one that includes it. This means that:
is a convenient abbreviation for:
and that:
is a convenient abbreviation for:
which in turn is an abbreviation for:
so, in this example, the nonterminal
A production may be parameterized by a subscripted annotation of the form “[parameters]”, which may appear as a suffix to the nonterminal symbol defined by the production. “parameters” may be either a single name or a comma separated list of names. A parameterized production is shorthand for a set of productions defining all combinations of the parameter names, preceded by an underscore, appended to the parameterized nonterminal symbol. This means that:
is a convenient abbreviation for:
and that:
is an abbreviation for:
Multiple parameters produce a combinatory number of productions, not all of which are necessarily referenced in a complete grammar.
References to nonterminals on the right-hand side of a production can also be parameterized. For example:
is equivalent to saying:
A nonterminal reference may have both a parameter list and an “opt” suffix. For example:
is an abbreviation for:
Prefixing a parameter name with “?” on a right-hand side nonterminal reference makes that parameter value dependent upon the occurrence of the parameter name on the reference to the current production's left-hand side symbol. For example:
is an abbreviation for:
If a right-hand side alternative is prefixed with “[+parameter]” that alternative is only available if the named parameter was used in referencing the production's nonterminal symbol. If a right-hand side alternative is prefixed with “[~parameter]” that alternative is only available if the named parameter was not used in referencing the production's nonterminal symbol. This means that:
is an abbreviation for:
and that
is an abbreviation for:
When the words “one of” follow the colon(s) in a grammar definition, they signify that each of the terminal symbols on the following line or lines is an alternative definition. For example, the lexical grammar for ECMAScript contains the production:
which is merely a convenient abbreviation for:
If the phrase “[empty]” appears as the right-hand side of a production, it indicates that the production's right-hand side contains no terminals or nonterminals.
If the phrase “[lookahead ∉ set]” appears in the right-hand side of a production, it indicates that the production may not be used if the immediately following input token sequence is a member of the given set. The set can be written as a comma separated list of one or two element terminal sequences enclosed in curly brackets. For convenience, the set can also be written as a nonterminal, in which case it represents the set of all terminals to which that nonterminal could expand. If the set consists of a single terminal the phrase “[lookahead ≠ terminal]” may be used.
For example, given the definitions
the definition
matches either the letter n followed by one or more decimal digits the first of which is even, or a decimal digit not followed by another decimal digit.
If the phrase “[no
indicates that the production may not be used if a throw token and the
Unless the presence of a
When an alternative in a production of the lexical grammar or the numeric string grammar appears to be a multi-code point token, it represents the sequence of code points that would make up such a token.
The right-hand side of a production may specify that certain expansions are not permitted by using the phrase “but not” and then indicating the expansions to be excluded. For example, the production:
means that the nonterminal
Finally, a few nonterminal symbols are described by a descriptive phrase in sans-serif type in cases where it would be impractical to list all the alternatives:
The specification often uses a numbered list to specify steps in an algorithm. These algorithms are used to precisely specify the required semantics of ECMAScript language constructs. The algorithms are not intended to imply the use of any specific implementation technique. In practice, there may be more efficient algorithms available to implement a given feature.
Algorithms may be explicitly parameterized, in which case the names and usage of the parameters must be provided as part of the algorithm's definition. In order to facilitate their use in multiple parts of this specification, some algorithms, called abstract operations, are named and written in parameterized functional form so that they may be referenced by name from within other algorithms. Abstract operations are typically referenced using a functional application style such as operationName(arg1, arg2). Some abstract operations are treated as polymorphically dispatched methods of class-like specification abstractions. Such method-like abstract operations are typically referenced using a method application style such as someValue.operationName(arg1, arg2).
Calls to abstract operations return ? indicate that
The prefix ! is used to indicate that an abstract operation will never return an
Algorithms may be associated with productions of one of the ECMAScript grammars. A production that has multiple alternative definitions will typically have a distinct algorithm for each alternative. When an algorithm is associated with a grammar production, it may reference the terminal and nonterminal symbols of the production alternative as if they were parameters of the algorithm. When used in this manner, nonterminal symbols refer to the actual alternative definition that is matched when parsing the source text.
When an algorithm is associated with a production alternative, the alternative is typically shown without any “[ ]” grammar annotations. Such annotations should only affect the syntactic recognition of the alternative and have no effect on the associated semantics for the alternative.
Unless explicitly specified otherwise, all chain productions have an implicit definition for every algorithm that might be applied to that production's left-hand side nonterminal. The implicit definition simply reapplies the same algorithm name with the same parameters, if any, to the
but there is no corresponding Evaluation algorithm that is explicitly specified for that production. If in some algorithm there is a statement of the form: “Return the result of evaluating
Runtime Semantics: Evaluation
For clarity of expression, algorithm steps may be subdivided into sequential substeps. Substeps are indented and may themselves be further divided into indented substeps. Outline numbering conventions are used to identify substeps with the first level of substeps labelled with lower case alphabetic characters and the second level of substeps labelled with lower case roman numerals. If more than three levels are required these rules repeat with the fourth level using numeric labels. For example:
A step or substep may be written as an “if” predicate that conditions its substeps. In this case, the substeps are only applied if the predicate is true. If a step or substep begins with the word “else”, it is a predicate that is the negation of the preceding “if” predicate step at the same level.
A step may specify the iterative application of its substeps.
A step that begins with “Assert:” asserts an invariant condition of its algorithm. Such assertions are used to make explicit algorithmic invariants that would otherwise be implicit. Such assertions add no additional semantic requirements and hence need not be checked by an implementation. They are used simply to clarify algorithms.
Mathematical operations such as addition, subtraction, negation, multiplication, division, and the mathematical functions defined later in this clause should always be understood as computing exact mathematical results on mathematical real numbers, which unless otherwise noted do not include infinities and do not include a negative zero that is distinguished from positive zero. Algorithms in this standard that model floating-point arithmetic include explicit steps, where necessary, to handle infinities and signed zero and to perform rounding. If a mathematical operation or function is applied to a floating-point number, it should be understood as being applied to the exact mathematical value represented by that floating-point number; such a floating-point number must be finite, and if it is
The mathematical function
The mathematical function
The notation “
The mathematical function
Context-free grammars are not sufficiently powerful to express all the rules that define whether a stream of input elements form a valid ECMAScript
Static Semantic Rules have names and typically are defined using an algorithm. Named Static Semantic Rules are associated with grammar productions and a production that has multiple alternative definitions will typically have for each alternative a distinct algorithm for each applicable named static semantic rule.
Unless otherwise specified every grammar production alternative in this specification implicitly has a definition for a static semantic rule named Contains which takes an argument named symbol whose value is a terminal or nonterminal of the grammar that includes the associated production. The default definition of Contains is:
The above definition is explicitly over-ridden for specific productions.
A special kind of static semantic rule is an Early Error Rule.
Algorithms within this specification manipulate values each of which has an associated type. The possible value types are exactly those defined in this clause. Types are further subclassified into ECMAScript language types and specification types.
Within this specification, the notation “Type(x)” is used as shorthand for “the type of x” where “type” refers to the ECMAScript language and specification types defined in this clause. When the term “empty” is used as if it was naming a value, it is equivalent to saying “no value of any type”.
An ECMAScript language type corresponds to values that are directly manipulated by an ECMAScript programmer using the ECMAScript language. The ECMAScript language types are Undefined, Null, Boolean, String, Symbol, Number, and Object. An ECMAScript language value is a value that is characterized by an ECMAScript language type.
The Undefined type has exactly one value, called
The Null type has exactly one value, called
The Boolean type represents a logical entity having two values, called
The String type is the set of all ordered sequences of zero or more 16-bit unsigned integer values (“elements”) up to a maximum length of 253-1 elements. The String type is generally used to represent textual data in a running ECMAScript program, in which case each element in the String is treated as a UTF-16 code unit value. Each element is regarded as occupying a position within the sequence. These positions are indexed with nonnegative integers. The first element (if any) is at index 0, the next element (if any) at index 1, and so on. The length of a String is the number of elements (i.e., 16-bit values) within it. The empty String has length zero and therefore contains no elements.
Where ECMAScript operations interpret String values, each element is interpreted as a single UTF-16 code unit. However, ECMAScript does not place any restrictions or requirements on the sequence of code units in a String value, so they may be ill-formed when interpreted as UTF-16 code unit sequences. Operations that do not interpret String contents treat them as sequences of undifferentiated 16-bit unsigned integers. The function String.prototype.normalize (see String.prototype.localeCompare (see
The rationale behind this design was to keep the implementation of Strings as simple and high-performing as possible. If ECMAScript source text is in Normalized Form C, string literals are guaranteed to also be normalized, as long as they do not contain any Unicode escape sequences.
Some operations interpret String contents as UTF-16 encoded Unicode code points. In that case the interpretation is:
The Symbol type is the set of all non-String values that may be used as the key of an Object property (
Each possible Symbol value is unique and immutable.
Each Symbol value immutably holds an associated value called [[Description]] that is either
Well-known symbols are built-in Symbol values that are explicitly referenced by algorithms of this specification. They are typically used as the keys of properties whose values serve as extension points of a specification algorithm. Unless otherwise specified, well-known symbols values are shared by all realms (
Within this specification a well-known symbol is referred to by using a notation of the form @@name, where “name” is one of the values listed in
| Specification Name | [[Description]] | Value and Purpose |
|---|---|---|
| @@hasInstance |
"Symbol.hasInstance"
|
A method that determines if a constructor object recognizes an object as one of the constructor's instances. Called by the semantics of the instanceof operator.
|
| @@isConcatSpreadable |
"Symbol.isConcatSpreadable"
|
A Boolean valued property that if true indicates that an object should be flattened to its array elements by Array.prototype.concat.
|
| @@iterator |
"Symbol.iterator"
|
A method that returns the default Iterator for an object. Called by the semantics of the for-of statement. |
| @@match |
"Symbol.match"
|
A regular expression method that matches the regular expression against a string. Called by the String.prototype.match method.
|
| @@replace |
"Symbol.replace"
|
A regular expression method that replaces matched substrings of a string. Called by the String.prototype.replace method.
|
| @@search |
"Symbol.search"
|
A regular expression method that returns the index within a string that matches the regular expression. Called by the String.prototype.search method.
|
| @@species |
"Symbol.species"
|
A function valued property that is the constructor function that is used to create derived objects. |
| @@split |
"Symbol.split"
|
A regular expression method that splits a string at the indices that match the regular expression. Called by the String.prototype.split method.
|
| @@toPrimitive |
"Symbol.toPrimitive"
|
A method that converts an object to a corresponding primitive value. Called by the |
| @@toStringTag |
"Symbol.toStringTag"
|
A String valued property that is used in the creation of the default string description of an object. Accessed by the built-in method Object.prototype.toString.
|
| @@unscopables |
"Symbol.unscopables"
|
An object valued property whose own and inherited property names are property names that are excluded from the with environment bindings of the associated object.
|
The Number type has exactly 18437736874454810627 (that is, NaN.) In some implementations, external code might be able to detect a difference between various Not-a-Number values, but such behaviour is implementation-dependent; to ECMAScript code, all
The bit pattern that might be observed in an ArrayBuffer (see
There are two other special values, called +Infinity (or simply Infinity) and -Infinity.)
The other 18437736874454810624 (that is,
Note that there is both a +0 (or simply 0) and -0.)
The 18437736874454810622 (that is,
18428729675200069632 (that is,
where s is +1 or -1, m is a positive integer less than 253 but not less than 252, and e is an integer ranging from -1074 to 971, inclusive.
The remaining 9007199254740990 (that is,
where s is +1 or -1, m is a positive integer less than 252, and e is -1074.
Note that all the positive and negative integers whose magnitude is no greater than 253 are representable in the Number type (indeed, the integer 0 has two representations,
A finite number has an odd significand if it is nonzero and the integer m used to express it (in one of the two forms shown above) is odd. Otherwise, it has an even significand.
In this specification, the phrase “the Number value for x” where x represents an exact nonzero real mathematical quantity (which might even be an irrational number such as π) means a Number value chosen in the following manner. Consider the set of all finite values of the Number type, with
Some ECMAScript operators deal only with integers in specific ranges such as
An Object is logically a collection of properties. Each property is either a data property, or an accessor property:
Properties are identified using key values. A property key value is either an ECMAScript String value or a Symbol value. All String and Symbol values, including the empty string, are valid as property keys. A property name is a property key that is a String value.
An integer index is a String-valued property key that is a canonical numeric String (see
Property keys are used to access properties and their values. There are two kinds of access for properties: get and set, corresponding to value retrieval and assignment, respectively. The properties accessible via get and set access includes both own properties that are a direct part of an object and inherited properties which are provided by another associated object via a property inheritance relationship. Inherited properties may be either own or inherited properties of the associated object. Each own property of an object must each have a key value that is distinct from the key values of the other own properties of that object.
All objects are logically collections of properties, but there are multiple forms of objects that differ in their semantics for accessing and manipulating their properties. Ordinary objects are the most common form of objects and have the default object semantics. An exotic object is any form of object whose property semantics differ in any way from the default semantics.
Attributes are used in this specification to define and explain the state of Object properties. A data property associates a key value with the attributes listed in
| Attribute Name | Value Domain | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[Value]] |
Any |
The value retrieved by a get access of the property. |
| [[Writable]] | Boolean |
If |
| [[Enumerable]] | Boolean |
If |
| [[Configurable]] | Boolean |
If |
An accessor property associates a key value with the attributes listed in
| Attribute Name | Value Domain | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[Get]] | Object | Undefined |
If the value is an Object it must be a function object. The function's [[Call]] internal method ( |
| [[Set]] | Object | Undefined |
If the value is an Object it must be a function object. The function's [[Call]] internal method ( |
| [[Enumerable]] | Boolean |
If |
| [[Configurable]] | Boolean |
If |
If the initial values of a property's attributes are not explicitly specified by this specification, the default value defined in
| Attribute Name | Default Value |
|---|---|
| [[Value]] |
|
| [[Get]] |
|
| [[Set]] |
|
| [[Writable]] |
|
| [[Enumerable]] |
|
| [[Configurable]] |
|
The actual semantics of objects, in ECMAScript, are specified via algorithms called internal methods. Each object in an ECMAScript engine is associated with a set of internal methods that defines its runtime behaviour. These internal methods are not part of the ECMAScript language. They are defined by this specification purely for expository purposes. However, each object within an implementation of ECMAScript must behave as specified by the internal methods associated with it. The exact manner in which this is accomplished is determined by the implementation.
Internal method names are polymorphic. This means that different object values may perform different algorithms when a common internal method name is invoked upon them. That actual object upon which an internal method is invoked is the “target” of the invocation. If, at runtime, the implementation of an algorithm attempts to use an internal method of an object that the object does not support, a
Internal slots correspond to internal state that is associated with objects and used by various ECMAScript specification algorithms. Internal slots are not object properties and they are not inherited. Depending upon the specific internal slot specification, such state may consist of values of any
Internal methods and internal slots are identified within this specification using names enclosed in double square brackets [[ ]].
The “Signature” column of
| Internal Method | Signature | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[GetPrototypeOf]] | () → Object | Null |
Determine the object that provides inherited properties for this object. A |
| [[SetPrototypeOf]] | (Object | Null) → Boolean |
Associate this object with another object that provides inherited properties. Passing |
| [[IsExtensible]] | ( ) → Boolean | Determine whether it is permitted to add additional properties to this object. |
| [[PreventExtensions]] | ( ) → Boolean |
Control whether new properties may be added to this object. Returns |
| [[GetOwnProperty]] |
(propertyKey) → Undefined | |
Return a |
| [[HasProperty]] | (propertyKey) → Boolean | Return a Boolean value indicating whether this object already has either an own or inherited property whose key is propertyKey. |
| [[Get]] | (propertyKey, Receiver) → any |
Return the value of the property whose key is propertyKey from this object. If any ECMAScript code must be executed to retrieve the property value, Receiver is used as the |
| [[Set]] | (propertyKey, value, Receiver) → Boolean |
Set the value of the property whose key is propertyKey to value. If any ECMAScript code must be executed to set the property value, Receiver is used as the |
| [[Delete]] | (propertyKey) → Boolean |
Remove the own property whose key is propertyKey from this object. Return |
| [[DefineOwnProperty]] | (propertyKey, PropertyDescriptor) → Boolean |
Create or alter the own property, whose key is propertyKey, to have the state described by PropertyDescriptor. Return |
| [[OwnPropertyKeys]] |
()→ |
Return a |
| Internal Method | Signature | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[Call]] |
(any, a |
Executes code associated with this object. Invoked via a function call expression. The arguments to the internal method are a |
| [[Construct]] |
(a |
Creates an object. Invoked via the new or super operators. The first argument to the internal method is a list containing the arguments of the operator. The second argument is the object to which the new operator was initially applied. Objects that implement this internal method are called constructors. A function object is not necessarily a constructor and such non-constructor function objects do not have a [[Construct]] internal method.
|
The semantics of the essential internal methods for ordinary objects and standard exotic objects are specified in clause
The Internal Methods of Objects of an ECMAScript engine must conform to the list of invariants specified below. Ordinary ECMAScript Objects as well as all standard exotic objects in this specification maintain these invariants. ECMAScript Proxy objects maintain these invariants by means of runtime checks on the result of traps invoked on the [[ProxyHandler]] object.
Any implementation provided exotic objects must also maintain these invariants for those objects. Violation of these invariants may cause ECMAScript code to have unpredictable behaviour and create security issues. However, violation of these invariants must never compromise the memory safety of an implementation.
An implementation must not allow these invariants to be circumvented in any manner such as by providing alternative interfaces that implement the functionality of the essential internal methods without enforcing their invariants.
An object's prototype chain should have finite length (that is, starting from any object, recursively applying the [[GetPrototypeOf]] internal method to its result should eventually lead to the value null). However, this requirement is not enforceable as an object level invariant if the prototype chain includes any exotic objects that do not use the ordinary object definition of [[GetPrototypeOf]]. Such a circular prototype chain may result in infinite loops when accessing object properties.
As a consequence of the third invariant, if a property is described as a data property and it may return different values over time, then either or both of the Desc.[[Writable]] and Desc.[[Configurable]] attributes must be true even if no mechanism to change the value is exposed via the other internal methods.
[[DefineOwnProperty]] must return false if P has previously been observed as a non-configurable own property of the target, unless either:
Well-known intrinsics are built-in objects that are explicitly referenced by the algorithms of this specification and which usually have
Within this specification a reference such as %name% means the intrinsic object, associated with the current
| Intrinsic Name | Global Name | ECMAScript Language Association |
|---|---|---|
|
|
Array
|
The Array constructor ( |
|
|
ArrayBuffer
|
The ArrayBuffer constructor ( |
|
|
ArrayBuffer.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
The prototype of Array iterator objects ( |
|
|
|
Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Array.prototype.values
|
The initial value of the values data property of |
|
|
Boolean
|
The Boolean constructor ( |
|
|
Boolean.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
DataView
|
The DataView constructor ( |
|
|
DataView.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Date
|
The Date constructor ( |
|
|
Date.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
decodeURI
|
The decodeURI function ( |
|
|
decodeURIComponent
|
The decodeURIComponent function ( |
|
|
encodeURI
|
The encodeURI function ( |
|
|
encodeURIComponent
|
The encodeURIComponent function ( |
|
|
Error
|
The Error constructor ( |
|
|
Error.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
eval
|
The eval function ( |
| %EvalError% |
EvalError
|
The EvalError constructor ( |
| %EvalErrorPrototype% |
EvalError.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %EvalError%
|
| %Float32Array% |
Float32Array
|
The Float32Array constructor ( |
| %Float32ArrayPrototype% |
Float32Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Float32Array%.
|
| %Float64Array% |
Float64Array
|
The Float64Array constructor ( |
| %Float64ArrayPrototype% |
Float64Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Float64Array%
|
|
|
Function
|
The Function constructor ( |
|
|
Function.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
| %Generator% |
The initial value of the prototype property of |
|
|
|
The constructor of generator objects ( |
|
|
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %Generator%
|
|
| %Int8Array% |
Int8Array
|
The Int8Array constructor ( |
| %Int8ArrayPrototype% |
Int8Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Int8Array%
|
| %Int16Array% |
Int16Array
|
The Int16Array constructor ( |
| %Int16ArrayPrototype% |
Int16Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Int16Array%
|
| %Int32Array% |
Int32Array
|
The Int32Array constructor ( |
| %Int32ArrayPrototype% |
Int32Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Int32Array%
|
|
|
isFinite
|
The isFinite function ( |
|
|
isNaN
|
The isNaN function ( |
|
|
An object that all standard built-in iterator objects indirectly inherit from | |
|
|
JSON
|
The JSON object ( |
|
|
Map
|
The Map constructor ( |
|
|
The prototype of Map iterator objects ( |
|
|
|
Map.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Math
|
The Math object ( |
|
|
Number
|
The Number constructor ( |
|
|
Number.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of |
|
|
Object
|
The Object constructor ( |
|
|
Object.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Object.prototype.toString
|
The initial value of the toString data property of |
|
|
Object.prototype.valueOf
|
The initial value of the valueOf data property of |
|
|
parseFloat
|
The parseFloat function ( |
|
|
parseInt
|
The parseInt function ( |
|
|
Promise
|
The Promise constructor ( |
|
|
Promise.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Proxy
|
The Proxy constructor ( |
| %RangeError% |
RangeError
|
The RangeError constructor ( |
| %RangeErrorPrototype% |
RangeError.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %RangeError%
|
| %ReferenceError% |
ReferenceError
|
The ReferenceError constructor ( |
| %ReferenceErrorPrototype% |
ReferenceError.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %ReferenceError%
|
|
|
Reflect
|
The Reflect object ( |
|
|
RegExp
|
The RegExp constructor ( |
|
|
RegExp.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Set
|
The Set constructor ( |
|
|
The prototype of Set iterator objects ( |
|
|
|
Set.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
String
|
The String constructor ( |
|
|
The prototype of String iterator objects ( |
|
|
|
String.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
Symbol
|
The Symbol constructor ( |
|
|
Symbol.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
| %SyntaxError% |
SyntaxError
|
The SyntaxError constructor ( |
| %SyntaxErrorPrototype% |
SyntaxError.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %SyntaxError%
|
|
|
A function object that unconditionally throws a new instance of %TypeError% | |
|
|
The super class of all typed Array constructors ( |
|
|
|
The initial value of the prototype property of |
|
| %TypeError% |
TypeError
|
The TypeError constructor ( |
| %TypeErrorPrototype% |
TypeError.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %TypeError%
|
| %Uint8Array% |
Uint8Array
|
The Uint8Array constructor ( |
| %Uint8ArrayPrototype% |
Uint8Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Uint8Array%
|
| %Uint8ClampedArray% |
Uint8ClampedArray
|
The Uint8ClampedArray constructor ( |
| %Uint8ClampedArrayPrototype% |
Uint8ClampedArray.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Uint8ClampedArray%
|
| %Uint16Array% |
Uint16Array
|
The Uint16Array constructor ( |
| %Uint16ArrayPrototype% |
Uint16Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Uint16Array%
|
| %Uint32Array% |
Uint32Array
|
The Uint32Array constructor ( |
| %Uint32ArrayPrototype% |
Uint32Array.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of %Uint32Array%
|
| %URIError% |
URIError
|
The URIError constructor ( |
| %URIErrorPrototype% |
URIError.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype property of %URIError%
|
|
|
WeakMap
|
The WeakMap constructor ( |
|
|
WeakMap.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
|
|
WeakSet
|
The WeakSet constructor ( |
|
|
WeakSet.prototype
|
The initial value of the prototype data property of |
A specification type corresponds to meta-values that are used within algorithms to describe the semantics of ECMAScript language constructs and ECMAScript language types. The specification types are
The List type is used to explain the evaluation of argument lists (see new expressions, in function calls, and in other algorithms where a simple ordered list of values is needed. Values of the List type are simply ordered sequences of list elements containing the individual values. These sequences may be of any length. The elements of a list may be randomly accessed using 0-origin indices. For notational convenience an array-like syntax can be used to access List elements. For example, arguments[2] is shorthand for saying the 3rd element of the List arguments.
For notational convenience within this specification, a literal syntax can be used to express a new List value. For example, « 1, 2 » defines a List value that has two elements each of which is initialized to a specific value. A new empty List can be expressed as « ».
The Record type is used to describe data aggregations within the algorithms of this specification. A Record type value consists of one or more named fields. The value of each field is either an ECMAScript value or an abstract value represented by a name associated with the Record type. Field names are always enclosed in double brackets, for example [[Value]].
For notational convenience within this specification, an object literal-like syntax can be used to express a Record value. For example, {[[Field1]]: 42, [[Field2]]:
In specification text and algorithms, dot notation may be used to refer to a specific field of a Record value. For example, if R is the record shown in the previous paragraph then R.[[Field2]] is shorthand for “the field of R named [[Field2]]”.
Schema for commonly used Record field combinations may be named, and that name may be used as a prefix to a literal Record value to identify the specific kind of aggregations that is being described. For example: PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: 42, [[Writable]]:
The Completion type is a break, continue, return and throw) that perform nonlocal transfers of control.
Values of the Completion type are
| Field | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| [[Type]] |
One of |
The type of completion that occurred. |
| [[Value]] |
any |
The value that was produced. |
| [[Target]] |
any ECMAScript string or |
The target label for directed control transfers. |
The term “abrupt completion” refers to any completion with a [[Type]] value other than
The abstract operation NormalCompletion with a single argument, such as:
Is a shorthand that is defined as follows:
The algorithms of this specification often implicitly return
"Infinity".
means the same thing as:
"Infinity").
However, if the value expression of a “return” statement is a
The abstract operation
A “return” statement without a value in an algorithm step means the same thing as:
Any reference to a
Algorithms steps that say to throw an exception, such as
mean the same things as:
Algorithms steps that say or are otherwise equivalent to:
mean the same thing as:
Algorithms steps that say or are otherwise equivalent to:
mean the same thing as:
Where hygienicTemp is ephemeral and visible only in the steps pertaining to ReturnIfAbrupt.
The abstract operation UpdateEmpty with arguments completionRecord and value performs the following steps:
The Reference type is used to explain the behaviour of such operators as delete, typeof, the assignment operators, the super keyword and other language features. For example, the left-hand operand of an assignment is expected to produce a reference.
A Reference is a resolved name or property binding. A Reference consists of three components, the base value, the referenced name and the Boolean valued strict reference flag. The base value is either
A Super Reference is a Reference that is used to represents a name binding that was expressed using the super keyword. A Super Reference has an additional thisValue component and its base value will never be an
The following abstract operations are used in this specification to access the components of references:
The following abstract operations are used in this specification to operate on references:
The object that may be created in step 5.a.ii is not accessible outside of the above abstract operation and the ordinary object [[Get]] internal method. An implementation might choose to avoid the actual creation of the object.
The object that may be created in step 6.a.ii is not accessible outside of the above algorithm and the ordinary object [[Set]] internal method. An implementation might choose to avoid the actual creation of that object.
The Property Descriptor type is used to explain the manipulation and reification of Object property attributes. Values of the Property Descriptor type are Records. Each field's name is an attribute name and its value is a corresponding attribute value as specified in
Property Descriptor values may be further classified as data Property Descriptors and accessor Property Descriptors based upon the existence or use of certain fields. A data Property Descriptor is one that includes any fields named either [[Value]] or [[Writable]]. An accessor Property Descriptor is one that includes any fields named either [[Get]] or [[Set]]. Any Property Descriptor may have fields named [[Enumerable]] and [[Configurable]]. A Property Descriptor value may not be both a data Property Descriptor and an accessor Property Descriptor; however, it may be neither. A generic Property Descriptor is a Property Descriptor value that is neither a data Property Descriptor nor an accessor Property Descriptor. A fully populated Property Descriptor is one that is either an accessor Property Descriptor or a data Property Descriptor and that has all of the fields that correspond to the property attributes defined in either
The following abstract operations are used in this specification to operate upon Property Descriptor values:
When the abstract operation IsAccessorDescriptor is called with
When the abstract operation IsDataDescriptor is called with
When the abstract operation IsGenericDescriptor is called with
When the abstract operation FromPropertyDescriptor is called with
"value", Desc.[[Value]])."writable", Desc.[[Writable]])."get", Desc.[[Get]])."set", Desc.[[Set]])."enumerable", Desc.[[Enumerable]])."configurable", Desc.[[Configurable]]).When the abstract operation ToPropertyDescriptor is called with object Obj, the following steps are taken:
"enumerable")."configurable")."value")."value")."writable")."get")."get")."set")."set").When the abstract operation CompletePropertyDescriptor is called with
The
The Data Block specification type is used to describe a distinct and mutable sequence of byte-sized (8 bit) numeric values. A Data Block value is created with a fixed number of bytes that each have the initial value 0.
For notational convenience within this specification, an array-like syntax can be used to access the individual bytes of a Data Block value. This notation presents a Data Block value as a 0-origined integer indexed sequence of bytes. For example, if db is a 5 byte Data Block value then db[2] can be used to access its 3rd byte.
The following abstract operations are used in this specification to operate upon Data Block values:
When the abstract operation CreateByteDataBlock is called with integer argument size, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation CopyDataBlockBytes is called, the following steps are taken:
These operations are not a part of the ECMAScript language; they are defined here to solely to aid the specification of the semantics of the ECMAScript language. Other, more specialized abstract operations are defined throughout this specification.
The ECMAScript language implicitly performs automatic type conversion as needed. To clarify the semantics of certain constructs it is useful to define a set of conversion abstract operations. The conversion abstract operations are polymorphic; they can accept a value of any
The abstract operation ToPrimitive takes an input argument and an optional argument PreferredType. The abstract operation ToPrimitive converts its input argument to a non-Object type. If an object is capable of converting to more than one primitive type, it may use the optional hint PreferredType to favour that type. Conversion occurs according to
| Input Type | Result |
|---|---|
| Undefined | Return input. |
| Null | Return input. |
| Boolean | Return input. |
| Number | Return input. |
| String | Return input. |
| Symbol | Return input. |
| Object | Perform the steps following this table. |
When
"default"."string"."number"."default", let hint be "number".When the abstract operation OrdinaryToPrimitive is called with arguments O and hint, the following steps are taken:
"string" or "number"."string", then"toString", "valueOf" »."valueOf", "toString" ».When ToPrimitive is called with no hint, then it generally behaves as if the hint were Number. However, objects may over-ride this behaviour by defining a @@toPrimitive method. Of the objects defined in this specification only Date objects (see
The abstract operation ToBoolean converts argument to a value of type Boolean according to
| Argument Type | Result |
|---|---|
| Undefined |
Return |
| Null |
Return |
| Boolean | Return argument. |
| Number |
Return |
| String |
Return |
| Symbol |
Return |
| Object |
Return |
The abstract operation ToNumber converts argument to a value of type Number according to
| Argument Type | Result |
|---|---|
| Undefined |
Return |
| Null |
Return |
| Boolean |
Return 1 if argument is |
| Number | Return argument (no conversion). |
| String | See grammar and conversion algorithm below. |
| Symbol |
Throw a |
| Object |
Apply the following steps:
|
The terminal symbols of this grammar are all composed of Unicode BMP code points so the result will be
All grammar symbols not explicitly defined above have the definitions used in the Lexical Grammar for numeric literals (
Some differences should be noted between the syntax of a
0 digits.
+ or - to indicate its sign.
Infinity and -Infinity are recognized as a The conversion of a String to a Number value is similar overall to the determination of the Number value for a numeric literal (see
Once the exact MV for a String numeric literal has been determined, it is then rounded to a value of the Number type. If the MV is 0, then the rounded value is "-", in which case the rounded value is
0; or
The abstract operation ToInteger converts argument to an integral numeric value. This abstract operation functions as follows:
The abstract operation ToInt32 converts argument to one of 232 integer values in the range
Given the above definition of ToInt32:
The abstract operation ToUint32 converts argument to one of 232 integer values in the range 0 through
Given the above definition of ToUint32:
The abstract operation ToInt16 converts argument to one of 216 integer values in the range -32768 through 32767, inclusive. This abstract operation functions as follows:
The abstract operation ToUint16 converts argument to one of 216 integer values in the range 0 through
Given the above definition of ToUint16:
The abstract operation ToInt8 converts argument to one of 28 integer values in the range -128 through 127, inclusive. This abstract operation functions as follows:
The abstract operation ToUint8 converts argument to one of 28 integer values in the range 0 through 255, inclusive. This abstract operation functions as follows:
The abstract operation ToUint8Clamp converts argument to one of 28 integer values in the range 0 through 255, inclusive. This abstract operation functions as follows:
Unlike the other ECMAScript integer conversion abstract operation, ToUint8Clamp rounds rather than truncates non-integer values and does not convert Math.round which does “round half up” tie-breaking.
The abstract operation ToString converts argument to a value of type String according to
| Argument Type | Result |
|---|---|
| Undefined |
Return "undefined".
|
| Null |
Return "null".
|
| Boolean |
If argument is If argument is |
| Number |
See |
| String | Return argument. |
| Symbol |
Throw a |
| Object |
Apply the following steps:
|
The abstract operation
"NaN"."0"."-" and "Infinity".The following observations may be useful as guidelines for implementations, but are not part of the normative requirements of this Standard:
For implementations that provide more accurate conversions than required by the rules above, it is recommended that the following alternative version of step 5 be used as a guideline:
Implementers of ECMAScript may find useful the paper and code written by David M. Gay for binary-to-decimal conversion of floating-point numbers:
Gay, David M. Correctly Rounded Binary-Decimal and Decimal-Binary Conversions. Numerical Analysis, Manuscript 90-10. AT&T Bell Laboratories (Murray Hill, New Jersey). November 30, 1990. Available as
http://ampl.com/REFS/abstracts.html#rounding. Associated code available as
http://netlib.sandia.gov/fp/dtoa.c and as
http://netlib.sandia.gov/fp/g_fmt.c and may also be found at the various netlib mirror sites.
The abstract operation ToObject converts argument to a value of type Object according to
| Argument Type | Result |
|---|---|
| Undefined |
Throw a |
| Null |
Throw a |
| Boolean |
Return a new Boolean object whose [[BooleanData]] internal slot is set to the value of argument. See |
| Number |
Return a new Number object whose [[NumberData]] internal slot is set to the value of argument. See |
| String |
Return a new String object whose [[StringData]] internal slot is set to the value of argument. See |
| Symbol |
Return a new Symbol object whose [[SymbolData]] internal slot is set to the value of argument. See |
| Object | Return argument. |
The abstract operation ToPropertyKey converts argument to a value that can be used as a property key by performing the following steps:
The abstract operation ToLength converts argument to an integer suitable for use as the length of an array-like object. It performs the following steps:
The abstract operation CanonicalNumericIndexString returns argument converted to a numeric value if it is a String representation of a Number that would be produced by "-0". Otherwise, it returns
A canonical numeric string is any String value for which the CanonicalNumericIndexString abstract operation does not return
The abstract operation RequireObjectCoercible throws an error if argument is a value that cannot be converted to an Object using
| Argument Type | Result |
|---|---|
| Undefined |
Throw a |
| Null |
Throw a |
| Boolean | Return argument. |
| Number | Return argument. |
| String | Return argument. |
| Symbol | Return argument. |
| Object | Return argument. |
The abstract operation IsArray takes one argument argument, and performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IsCallable determines if argument, which must be an
The abstract operation IsConstructor determines if argument, which must be an
The abstract operation IsExtensible is used to determine whether additional properties can be added to the object that is O. A Boolean value is returned. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IsInteger determines if argument is a finite integer numeric value.
The abstract operation IsPropertyKey determines if argument, which must be an
The abstract operation IsRegExp with argument argument performs the following steps:
The internal comparison abstract operation SameValue(x, y), where x and y are ECMAScript language values, produces
This algorithm differs from the
The internal comparison abstract operation SameValueZero(x, y), where x and y are ECMAScript language values, produces
SameValueZero differs from
The internal comparison abstract operation SameValueNonNumber(x, y), where neither x nor y are Number values, produces
The comparison x < y, where x and y are values, produces
Step 3 differs from step 7 in the algorithm for the addition operator + (
The comparison of Strings uses a simple lexicographic ordering on sequences of code unit values. There is no attempt to use the more complex, semantically oriented definitions of character or string equality and collating order defined in the Unicode specification. Therefore String values that are canonically equal according to the Unicode standard could test as unequal. In effect this algorithm assumes that both Strings are already in normalized form. Also, note that for strings containing supplementary characters, lexicographic ordering on sequences of UTF-16 code unit values differs from that on sequences of code point values.
The comparison x == y, where x and y are values, produces
The comparison x === y, where x and y are values, produces
This algorithm differs from the
The abstract operation Get is used to retrieve the value of a specific property of an object. The operation is called with arguments O and P where O is the object and P is the property key. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
The abstract operation GetV is used to retrieve the value of a specific property of an
The abstract operation Set is used to set the value of a specific property of an object. The operation is called with arguments O, P, V, and Throw where O is the object, P is the property key, V is the new value for the property and Throw is a Boolean flag. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
The abstract operation CreateDataProperty is used to create a new own property of an object. The operation is called with arguments O, P, and V where O is the object, P is the property key, and V is the value for the property. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
This abstract operation creates a property whose attributes are set to the same defaults used for properties created by the ECMAScript language assignment operator. Normally, the property will not already exist. If it does exist and is not configurable or if O is not extensible, [[DefineOwnProperty]] will return
The abstract operation CreateMethodProperty is used to create a new own property of an object. The operation is called with arguments O, P, and V where O is the object, P is the property key, and V is the value for the property. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
This abstract operation creates a property whose attributes are set to the same defaults used for built-in methods and methods defined using class declaration syntax. Normally, the property will not already exist. If it does exist and is not configurable or if O is not extensible, [[DefineOwnProperty]] will return
The abstract operation CreateDataPropertyOrThrow is used to create a new own property of an object. It throws a
This abstract operation creates a property whose attributes are set to the same defaults used for properties created by the ECMAScript language assignment operator. Normally, the property will not already exist. If it does exist and is not configurable or if O is not extensible, [[DefineOwnProperty]] will return
The abstract operation DefinePropertyOrThrow is used to call the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of an object in a manner that will throw a
The abstract operation DeletePropertyOrThrow is used to remove a specific own property of an object. It throws an exception if the property is not configurable. The operation is called with arguments O and P where O is the object and P is the property key. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
The abstract operation GetMethod is used to get the value of a specific property of an
The abstract operation HasProperty is used to determine whether an object has a property with the specified property key. The property may be either an own or inherited. A Boolean value is returned. The operation is called with arguments O and P where O is the object and P is the property key. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
The abstract operation HasOwnProperty is used to determine whether an object has an own property with the specified property key. A Boolean value is returned. The operation is called with arguments O and P where O is the object and P is the property key. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
The abstract operation Call is used to call the [[Call]] internal method of a function object. The operation is called with arguments F, V, and optionally argumentsList where F is the function object, V is an
The abstract operation Construct is used to call the [[Construct]] internal method of a function object. The operation is called with arguments F, and optionally argumentsList, and newTarget where F is the function object. argumentsList and newTarget are the values to be passed as the corresponding arguments of the internal method. If argumentsList is not present, a new empty
If newTarget is not passed, this operation is equivalent to: new F(...argumentsList)
The abstract operation SetIntegrityLevel is used to fix the set of own properties of an object. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
"sealed" or "frozen"."sealed", then"frozen",The abstract operation TestIntegrityLevel is used to determine if the set of own properties of an object are fixed. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
"sealed" or "frozen"."frozen" and The abstract operation CreateArrayFromList is used to create an Array object whose elements are provided by a
The abstract operation CreateListFromArrayLike is used to create a
The abstract operation Invoke is used to call a method property of an
The abstract operation OrdinaryHasInstance implements the default algorithm for determining if an object O inherits from the instance object inheritance path provided by constructor C. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
"prototype").null, return The abstract operation SpeciesConstructor is used to retrieve the constructor that should be used to create new objects that are derived from the argument object O. The defaultConstructor argument is the constructor to use if a constructor @@species property cannot be found starting from O. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
"constructor").When the abstract operation EnumerableOwnNames is called with Object O, the following steps are taken:
The abstract operation GetFunctionRealm with argument obj performs the following steps:
Step 5 will only be reached if target is a non-standard exotic function object that does not have a [[Realm]] internal slot.
See Common Iteration Interfaces (
The abstract operation GetIterator with argument obj and optional argument method performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IteratorNext with argument iterator and optional argument value performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IteratorComplete with argument iterResult performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IteratorValue with argument iterResult performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IteratorStep with argument iterator requests the next value from iterator and returns either
The abstract operation IteratorClose with arguments iterator and completion is used to notify an iterator that it should perform any actions it would normally perform when it has reached its completed state:
"return").The abstract operation CreateIterResultObject with arguments value and done creates an object that supports the IteratorResult interface by performing the following steps:
"value", value)."done", done).The abstract operation CreateListIterator with argument list creates an Iterator (
next ("next", next).The ListIterator next method is a standard built-in function object (clause
A ListIterator next method will throw an exception if applied to any object other than the one with which it was originally associated.
A Lexical Environment is a specification type used to define the association of
An
The outer environment reference is used to model the logical nesting of Lexical Environment values. The outer reference of a (inner) Lexical Environment is a reference to the Lexical Environment that logically surrounds the inner Lexical Environment. An outer Lexical Environment may, of course, have its own outer Lexical Environment. A Lexical Environment may serve as the outer environment for multiple inner Lexical Environments. For example, if a
A global environment is a Lexical Environment which does not have an outer environment. The global environment's outer environment reference is
A module environment is a Lexical Environment that contains the bindings for the top level declarations of a
A function environment is a Lexical Environment that corresponds to the invocation of an ECMAScript function object. A function environment may establish a new this binding. A function environment also captures the state necessary to support super method invocations.
Lexical Environments and
There are two primary kinds of Environment Record values used in this specification: declarative Environment Records and object Environment Records. Declarative Environment Records are used to define the effect of ECMAScript language syntactic elements such as
For specification purposes Environment Record values are values of the
| Method | Purpose |
|---|---|
| HasBinding(N) |
Determine if an Environment Record has a binding for the String value N. Return |
| CreateMutableBinding(N, D) |
Create a new but uninitialized mutable binding in an Environment Record. The String value N is the text of the bound name. If the Boolean argument D is |
| CreateImmutableBinding(N, S) |
Create a new but uninitialized immutable binding in an Environment Record. The String value N is the text of the bound name. If S is |
| InitializeBinding(N, V) |
Set the value of an already existing but uninitialized binding in an Environment Record. The String value N is the text of the bound name. V is the value for the binding and is a value of any |
| SetMutableBinding(N, V, S) |
Set the value of an already existing mutable binding in an Environment Record. The String value N is the text of the bound name. V is the value for the binding and may be a value of any |
| GetBindingValue(N, S) |
Returns the value of an already existing binding from an Environment Record. The String value N is the text of the bound name. S is used to identify references originating in |
| DeleteBinding(N) |
Delete a binding from an Environment Record. The String value N is the text of the bound name. If a binding for N exists, remove the binding and return |
| HasThisBinding() |
Determine if an Environment Record establishes a this binding. Return |
| HasSuperBinding() |
Determine if an Environment Record establishes a super method binding. Return |
| WithBaseObject() |
If this Environment Record is associated with a with statement, return the with object. Otherwise, return |
Each declarative
The behaviour of the concrete specification methods for declarative Environment Records is defined by the following algorithms.
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
An example of ECMAScript code that results in a missing binding at step 2 is:
function f(){eval("var x; x = (delete x, 0);")}
The concrete
The concrete
Regular declarative Environment Records do not provide a this binding.
Regular declarative Environment Records do not provide a super binding.
Declarative Environment Records always return
Each object
Object Environment Records created for with statements (
The behaviour of the concrete specification methods for object Environment Records is defined by the following algorithms.
The concrete
The concrete
Normally envRec will not have a binding for N but if it does, the semantics of
The concrete
The concrete
In this specification, all uses of CreateMutableBinding for object Environment Records are immediately followed by a call to InitializeBinding for the same name. Hence, implementations do not need to explicitly track the initialization state of individual object
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
Regular object Environment Records do not provide a this binding.
Regular object Environment Records do not provide a super binding.
Object Environment Records return
A function this binding. If a function is not an super, its function super method invocations from within the function.
Function Environment Records have the additional state fields listed in
| Field Name | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| [[ThisValue]] | Any |
This is the |
| [[ThisBindingStatus]] |
"lexical" | "initialized" | "uninitialized"
|
If the value is "lexical", this is an |
| [[FunctionObject]] | Object |
The function object whose invocation caused this |
| [[HomeObject]] |
Object | |
If the associated function has super property accesses and is not an |
| [[NewTarget]] |
Object | |
If this |
Function Environment Records support all of the declarative
| Method | Purpose |
|---|---|
| BindThisValue(V) | Set the [[ThisValue]] and record that it has been initialized. |
| GetThisBinding() |
Return the value of this this binding. Throws a this binding has not been initialized.
|
| GetSuperBase() |
Return the object that is the base for super property accesses bound in this super property accesses will produce runtime errors.
|
The behaviour of the additional concrete specification methods for function Environment Records is defined by the following algorithms:
"lexical"."initialized", throw a "initialized"."lexical", return "lexical", return "lexical"."uninitialized", throw a A global
A global
Properties may be created directly on a
Global Environment Records have the additional fields listed in
| Field Name | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| [[ObjectRecord]] |
Object |
Binding object is the |
| [[GlobalThisValue]] | Object |
The value returned by this in global scope. Hosts may provide any ECMAScript Object value.
|
| [[DeclarativeRecord]] |
Declarative |
Contains bindings for all declarations in global code for the associated |
| [[VarNames]] |
|
The string names bound by |
| Method | Purpose |
|---|---|
| GetThisBinding() |
Return the value of this this binding.
|
| HasVarDeclaration (N) |
Determines if the argument identifier has a binding in this |
| HasLexicalDeclaration (N) |
Determines if the argument identifier has a binding in this |
| HasRestrictedGlobalProperty (N) |
Determines if the argument is the name of a |
| CanDeclareGlobalVar (N) | Determines if a corresponding CreateGlobalVarBinding call would succeed if called for the same argument N. |
| CanDeclareGlobalFunction (N) | Determines if a corresponding CreateGlobalFunctionBinding call would succeed if called for the same argument N. |
| CreateGlobalVarBinding(N, D) |
Used to create and initialize to var binding in the [[ObjectRecord]] component of a global var. The String value N is the bound name. If D is |
| CreateGlobalFunctionBinding(N, V, D) |
Create and initialize a global function binding in the [[ObjectRecord]] component of a global function. The String value N is the bound name. V is the initialization value. If the Boolean argument D is |
The behaviour of the concrete specification methods for global Environment Records is defined by the following algorithms.
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
Global Environment Records always return
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
Properties may exist upon a undefined is an example of such a property.
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
The concrete
Global function declarations are always represented as own properties of the
A module
Module Environment Records support all of the declarative
| Method | Purpose |
|---|---|
| CreateImportBinding(N, M, N2) |
Create an immutable indirect binding in a module |
| GetThisBinding() |
Return the value of this this binding.
|
The behaviour of the additional concrete specification methods for module Environment Records are defined by the following algorithms:
The concrete
Because a
The concrete
The bindings of a module
Module Environment Records provide a this binding.
The concrete
The following abstract operations are used in this specification to operate upon lexical environments:
The abstract operation GetIdentifierReference is called with a
When the abstract operation NewDeclarativeEnvironment is called with a
When the abstract operation NewObjectEnvironment is called with an Object O and a
When the abstract operation NewFunctionEnvironment is called with arguments F and newTarget the following steps are performed:
"lexical"."uninitialized".When the abstract operation NewGlobalEnvironment is called with arguments G and thisValue, the following steps are performed:
When the abstract operation NewModuleEnvironment is called with a
Before it is evaluated, all ECMAScript code must be associated with a realm. Conceptually, a realm consists of a set of intrinsic objects, an ECMAScript
A realm is represented in this specification as a Realm Record with the fields specified in
| Field Name | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| [[Intrinsics]] |
|
The intrinsic values used by code associated with this realm |
| [[GlobalObject]] | Object |
The |
| [[GlobalEnv]] |
|
The |
| [[TemplateMap]] |
A |
Template objects are canonicalized separately for each realm using its Realm Record's [[TemplateMap]]. Each [[Strings]] value is a |
An implementation may define other, implementation specific fields.
The abstract operation CreateRealm with no arguments performs the following steps:
When the abstract operation CreateIntrinsics with argument realmRec performs the following steps:
The abstract operation SetRealmGlobalObject with arguments realmRec, globalObj, and thisValue performs the following steps:
The abstract operation SetDefaultGlobalBindings with argument realmRec performs the following steps:
An execution context is a specification device that is used to track the runtime evaluation of code by an ECMAScript implementation. At any point in time, there is at most one execution context that is actually executing code. This is known as the running execution context.
The execution context stack is used to track execution contexts. The running execution context is always the top element of this stack. A new execution context is created whenever control is transferred from the executable code associated with the currently running execution context to executable code that is not associated with that execution context. The newly created execution context is pushed onto the stack and becomes the running execution context.
An execution context contains whatever implementation specific state is necessary to track the execution progress of its associated code. Each execution context has at least the state components listed in
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| code evaluation state | Any state needed to perform, suspend, and resume evaluation of the code associated with this execution context. |
| Function |
If this execution context is evaluating the code of a function object, then the value of this component is that function object. If the context is evaluating the code of a |
|
|
The |
| ScriptOrModule |
The |
Evaluation of code by the running execution context may be suspended at various points defined within this specification. Once the running execution context has been suspended a different execution context may become the running execution context and commence evaluating its code. At some later time a suspended execution context may again become the running execution context and continue evaluating its code at the point where it had previously been suspended. Transition of the running execution context status among execution contexts usually occurs in stack-like last-in/first-out manner. However, some ECMAScript features require non-LIFO transitions of the running execution context.
The value of the
Execution contexts for ECMAScript code have the additional state components listed in
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| LexicalEnvironment |
Identifies the |
| VariableEnvironment |
Identifies the |
The LexicalEnvironment and VariableEnvironment components of an execution context are always Lexical Environments. When an execution context is created its LexicalEnvironment and VariableEnvironment components initially have the same value.
Execution contexts representing the evaluation of generator objects have the additional state components listed in
| Component | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Generator | The GeneratorObject that this execution context is evaluating. |
In most situations only the running execution context (the top of the execution context stack) is directly manipulated by algorithms within this specification. Hence when the terms “LexicalEnvironment”, and “VariableEnvironment” are used without qualification they are in reference to those components of the running execution context.
An execution context is purely a specification mechanism and need not correspond to any particular artefact of an ECMAScript implementation. It is impossible for ECMAScript code to directly access or observe an execution context.
The GetActiveScriptOrModule abstract operation is used to determine the running script or module, based on the
The ResolveBinding abstract operation is used to determine the binding of name passed as a String value. The optional argument env can be used to explicitly provide the
The result of ResolveBinding is always a
The abstract operation GetThisEnvironment finds the this. GetThisEnvironment performs the following steps:
The loop in step 2 will always terminate because the list of environments always ends with the this binding.
The abstract operation ResolveThisBinding determines the binding of the keyword this using the LexicalEnvironment of the
The abstract operation GetNewTarget determines the NewTarget value using the LexicalEnvironment of the
The abstract operation GetGlobalObject returns the
A Job is an abstract operation that initiates an ECMAScript computation when no other ECMAScript computation is currently in progress. A Job abstract operation may be defined to accept an arbitrary set of job parameters.
Execution of a Job can be initiated only when there is no
| Field Name | Value | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| [[Job]] | The name of a Job abstract operation |
This is the abstract operation that is performed when execution of this PendingJob is initiated. Jobs are abstract operations that use |
| [[Arguments]] |
A |
The |
| [[Realm]] |
A |
The |
| [[ScriptOrModule]] |
A |
The script or module for the initial |
| [[HostDefined]] |
Any, default value is |
Field reserved for use by host environments that need to associate additional information with a pending Job. |
A Job Queue is a FIFO queue of PendingJob records. Each Job Queue has a name and the full set of available Job Queues are defined by an ECMAScript implementation. Every ECMAScript implementation has at least the Job Queues defined in
A request for the future execution of a Job is made by enqueueing, on a Job Queue, a PendingJob record that includes a Job abstract operation name and any necessary argument values. When there is no
The PendingJob records from a single Job Queue are always initiated in FIFO order. This specification does not define the order in which multiple Job Queues are serviced. An ECMAScript implementation may interweave the FIFO evaluation of the PendingJob records of a Job Queue with the evaluation of the PendingJob records of one or more other Job Queues. An implementation must define what occurs when there are no
Typically an ECMAScript implementation will have its Job Queues pre-initialized with at least one PendingJob and one of those Jobs will be the first to be executed. An implementation might choose to free all resources and terminate if the current Job completes and all Job Queues are empty. Alternatively, it might choose to wait for a some implementation specific agent or mechanism to enqueue new PendingJob requests.
The following abstract operations are used to create and manage Jobs and Job Queues:
The EnqueueJob abstract operation requires three arguments: queueName, job, and arguments. It performs the following steps:
An algorithm step such as:
is used in Job abstract operations in place of:
Job abstract operations must not contain a Return step or a
The abstract operation InitializeHostDefinedRealm performs the following steps:
this binding in this binding should be the "ScriptJobs", "ScriptJobs", All ordinary objects have an internal slot called [[Prototype]]. The value of this internal slot is either
Every ordinary object has a Boolean-valued [[Extensible]] internal slot that controls whether or not properties may be added to the object. If the value of the [[Extensible]] internal slot is
In the following algorithm descriptions, assume O is an ordinary object, P is a property key value, V is any
Each ordinary object internal method delegates to a similarly-named abstract operation. If such an abstract operation depends on another internal method, then the internal method is invoked on O rather than calling the similarly-named abstract operation directly. These semantics ensure that exotic objects have their overridden internal methods invoked when ordinary object internal methods are applied to them.
When the [[GetPrototypeOf]] internal method of O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryGetPrototypeOf is called with Object O, the following steps are taken:
When the [[SetPrototypeOf]] internal method of O is called with argument V, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinarySetPrototypeOf is called with Object O and value V, the following steps are taken:
The loop in step 8 guarantees that there will be no circularities in any prototype chain that only includes objects that use the ordinary object definitions for [[GetPrototypeOf]] and [[SetPrototypeOf]].
When the [[IsExtensible]] internal method of O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryIsExtensible is called with Object O, the following steps are taken:
When the [[PreventExtensions]] internal method of O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryPreventExtensions is called with Object O, the following steps are taken:
When the [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method of O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryGetOwnProperty is called with Object O and with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of O is called with property key P and
When the abstract operation OrdinaryDefineOwnProperty is called with Object O, property key P, and
When the abstract operation IsCompatiblePropertyDescriptor is called with Boolean value Extensible, and Property Descriptors Desc, and Current, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation ValidateAndApplyPropertyDescriptor is called with Object O, property key P, Boolean value extensible, and Property Descriptors Desc, and current, the following steps are taken:
This algorithm contains steps that test various fields of the
If
Step 8.b allows any field of Desc to be different from the corresponding field of current if current's [[Configurable]] field is
When the [[HasProperty]] internal method of O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryHasProperty is called with Object O and with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[Get]] internal method of O is called with property key P and
When the abstract operation OrdinaryGet is called with Object O, property key P, and
When the [[Set]] internal method of O is called with property key P, value V, and
When the abstract operation OrdinarySet is called with Object O, property key P, value V, and
When the [[Delete]] internal method of O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryDelete is called with Object O and property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[OwnPropertyKeys]] internal method of O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the abstract operation OrdinaryOwnPropertyKeys is called with Object O, the following steps are taken:
The abstract operation ObjectCreate with argument proto (an object or null) is used to specify the runtime creation of new ordinary objects. The optional argument internalSlotsList is a
The abstract operation OrdinaryCreateFromConstructor creates an ordinary object whose [[Prototype]] value is retrieved from a constructor's prototype property, if it exists. Otherwise the intrinsic named by intrinsicDefaultProto is used for [[Prototype]]. The optional internalSlotsList is a
The abstract operation GetPrototypeFromConstructor determines the [[Prototype]] value that should be used to create an object corresponding to a specific constructor. The value is retrieved from the constructor's prototype property, if it exists. Otherwise the intrinsic named by intrinsicDefaultProto is used for [[Prototype]]. This abstract operation performs the following steps:
"prototype").If constructor does not supply a [[Prototype]] value, the default value that is used is obtained from the
ECMAScript function objects encapsulate parameterized ECMAScript code closed over a lexical environment and support the dynamic evaluation of that code. An ECMAScript function object is an ordinary object and has the same internal slots and the same internal methods as other ordinary objects. The code of an ECMAScript function object may be either
ECMAScript function objects have the additional internal slots listed in
| Internal Slot | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[Environment]] |
|
The |
| [[FormalParameters]] | Parse Node | The root parse node of the source text that defines the function's formal parameter list. |
| [[FunctionKind]] | String |
Either "normal", "classConstructor" or "generator".
|
| [[ECMAScriptCode]] | Parse Node | The root parse node of the source text that defines the function's body. |
| [[ConstructorKind]] | String |
Either "base" or "derived".
|
| [[Realm]] |
|
The |
| [[ScriptOrModule]] |
|
The script or module in which the function was created. |
| [[ThisMode]] | (lexical, strict, global) |
Defines how this references are interpreted within the formal parameters and code body of the function. this refers to the |
| [[Strict]] | Boolean |
|
| [[HomeObject]] | Object |
If the function uses super, this is the object whose [[GetPrototypeOf]] provides the object where super property lookups begin.
|
All ECMAScript function objects have the [[Call]] internal method defined here. ECMAScript functions that are also constructors in addition have the [[Construct]] internal method.
The [[Call]] internal method for an ECMAScript function object F is called with parameters thisArgument and argumentsList, a
"classConstructor", throw a When calleeContext is removed from the
When the abstract operation PrepareForOrdinaryCall is called with function object F and
When the abstract operation OrdinaryCallBindThis is called with function object F,
"initialized".When the abstract operation OrdinaryCallEvaluateBody is called with function object F and
The [[Construct]] internal method for an ECMAScript Function object F is called with parameters argumentsList and newTarget. argumentsList is a possibly empty
"base", then"%ObjectPrototype%")."base", perform "base", return The abstract operation FunctionAllocate requires the three arguments functionPrototype, strict and functionKind. FunctionAllocate performs the following steps:
"normal", "non-constructor" or "generator"."normal", let needsConstruct be "non-constructor", let functionKind be "normal"."base".The abstract operation FunctionInitialize requires the arguments: a function object F, kind which is one of (Normal, Method, Arrow), a parameter list production specified by ParameterList, a body production specified by Body, a
length own property."length", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: len, [[Writable]]: The abstract operation FunctionCreate requires the arguments: kind which is one of (Normal, Method, Arrow), a parameter list production specified by ParameterList, a body production specified by Body, a
"non-constructor"."normal".The abstract operation GeneratorFunctionCreate requires the arguments: kind which is one of (Normal, Method), a parameter list production specified by ParameterList, a body production specified by Body, a
"generator").The abstract operation AddRestrictedFunctionProperties is called with a function object F and
"caller", PropertyDescriptor {[[Get]]: thrower, [[Set]]: thrower, [[Enumerable]]: "arguments", PropertyDescriptor {[[Get]]: thrower, [[Set]]: thrower, [[Enumerable]]: The %ThrowTypeError% intrinsic is an anonymous built-in function object that is defined once for each
The value of the [[Extensible]] internal slot of a %ThrowTypeError% function is
The length property of a %ThrowTypeError% function has the attributes { [[Writable]]:
The abstract operation MakeConstructor requires a Function argument F and optionally, a Boolean writablePrototype and an object prototype. If prototype is provided it is assumed to already contain, if needed, a "constructor" property whose value is F. This operation converts F into a constructor by performing the following steps:
prototype own property."constructor", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: F, [[Writable]]: writablePrototype, [[Enumerable]]: "prototype", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: prototype, [[Writable]]: writablePrototype, [[Enumerable]]: The abstract operation MakeClassConstructor with argument F performs the following steps:
"normal"."classConstructor".The abstract operation MakeMethod with arguments F and homeObject configures F as a method by performing the following steps:
The abstract operation SetFunctionName requires a Function argument F, a String or Symbol argument name and optionally a String argument prefix. This operation adds a name property to F by performing the following steps:
name own property."[", description, and "]"."name", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: name, [[Writable]]: When an
FunctionDeclarationInstantiation is performed as follows using arguments func and argumentsList. func is the function object for which the
"arguments" is an element of parameterNames, then"arguments" is an element of functionNames or if "arguments" is an element of lexicalNames, then"arguments", "arguments", "arguments", ao)."arguments" to parameterNames.Parameter
The built-in function objects defined in this specification may be implemented as either ECMAScript function objects (
If a built-in function object is implemented as an exotic object it must have the ordinary object behaviour specified in
Unless otherwise specified every built-in function object has the
The behaviour specified for each built-in function via algorithm steps or other means is the specification of the function body behaviour for both [[Call]] and [[Construct]] invocations of the function. However, [[Construct]] invocation is not supported by all built-in functions. For each built-in function, when invoked with [[Call]], the [[Call]] thisArgument provides the "classConstructor".
Built-in function objects that are not identified as constructors do not implement the [[Construct]] internal method unless otherwise specified in the description of a particular function. When a built-in constructor is called as part of a new expression the argumentsList parameter of the invoked [[Construct]] internal method provides the values for the built-in constructor's named parameters.
Built-in functions that are not constructors do not have a prototype property unless otherwise specified in the description of a particular function.
If a built-in function object is not implemented as an ECMAScript function it must provide [[Call]] and [[Construct]] internal methods that conform to the following definitions:
The [[Call]] internal method for a built-in function object F is called with parameters thisArgument and argumentsList, a
When calleeContext is removed from the
The [[Construct]] internal method for built-in function object F is called with parameters argumentsList and newTarget. The steps performed are the same as [[Call]] (see
The abstract operation CreateBuiltinFunction takes arguments
Each built-in function defined in this specification is created as if by calling the CreateBuiltinFunction abstract operation, unless otherwise specified.
This specification defines several kinds of built-in exotic objects. These objects generally behave similar to ordinary objects except for a few specific situations. The following exotic objects use the ordinary object internal methods except where it is explicitly specified otherwise below:
A bound function is an exotic object that wraps another function object. A bound function is callable (it has a [[Call]] internal method and may have a [[Construct]] internal method). Calling a bound function generally results in a call of its wrapped function.
Bound function objects do not have the internal slots of ECMAScript function objects defined in
| Internal Slot | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[BoundTargetFunction]] | Callable Object | The wrapped function object. |
| [[BoundThis]] | Any |
The value that is always passed as the |
| [[BoundArguments]] |
|
A list of values whose elements are used as the first arguments to any call to the wrapped function. |
Bound function objects provide all of the essential internal methods as specified in
When the [[Call]] internal method of an exotic
When the [[Construct]] internal method of an exotic
The abstract operation BoundFunctionCreate with arguments targetFunction, boundThis and boundArgs is used to specify the creation of new Bound Function exotic objects. It performs the following steps:
An Array object is an exotic object that gives special treatment to array index property keys (see length property whose value is always a nonnegative integer less than 232. The value of the length property is numerically greater than the name of every own property whose name is an array index; whenever an own property of an Array object is created or changed, other properties are adjusted as necessary to maintain this invariant. Specifically, whenever an own property is added whose name is an array index, the value of the length property is changed, if necessary, to be one more than the numeric value of that array index; and whenever the value of the length property is changed, every own property whose name is an array index whose value is not smaller than the new length is deleted. This constraint applies only to own properties of an Array object and is unaffected by length or array index properties that may be inherited from its prototypes.
A String property name P is an array index if and only if
Array exotic objects always have a non-configurable property named "length".
Array exotic objects provide an alternative definition for the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method. Except for that internal method, Array exotic objects provide all of the other essential internal methods as specified in
When the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of an Array exotic object A is called with property key P, and
"length", then"length")."length", oldLenDesc).The abstract operation ArrayCreate with argument length (either 0 or a positive integer) and optional argument proto is used to specify the creation of new Array exotic objects. It performs the following steps:
"length", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: length, [[Writable]]: The abstract operation ArraySpeciesCreate with arguments originalArray and length is used to specify the creation of a new Array object using a constructor function that is derived from originalArray. It performs the following steps:
"constructor").If originalArray was created using the standard built-in Array constructor for a
When the abstract operation ArraySetLength is called with an Array exotic object A, and
"length", Desc)."length")."length", newLenDesc)."length", newLenDesc)."length", newLenDesc)."length", PropertyDescriptor{[[Writable]]: In steps 3 and 4, if Desc.[[Value]] is an object then its valueOf method is called twice. This is legacy behaviour that was specified with this effect starting with the 2nd Edition of this specification.
A String object is an exotic object that encapsulates a String value and exposes virtual integer indexed data properties corresponding to the individual code unit elements of the String value. Exotic String objects always have a data property named "length" whose value is the number of code unit elements in the encapsulated String value. Both the code unit data properties and the "length" property are non-writable and non-configurable.
Exotic String objects have the same internal slots as ordinary objects. They also have a [[StringData]] internal slot.
Exotic String objects provide alternative definitions for the following internal methods. All of the other exotic String object essential internal methods that are not defined below are as specified in
When the [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method of an exotic String object S is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[OwnPropertyKeys]] internal method of a String exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
The abstract operation StringCreate with arguments value and prototype is used to specify the creation of new exotic String objects. It performs the following steps:
"length", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: length, [[Writable]]: Most ECMAScript functions make an arguments object available to their code. Depending upon the characteristics of the function definition, its arguments object is either an ordinary object or an arguments exotic object. An arguments exotic object is an exotic object whose array index properties map to the formal parameters bindings of an invocation of its associated ECMAScript function.
Arguments exotic objects have the same internal slots as ordinary objects. They also have a [[ParameterMap]] internal slot. Ordinary arguments objects also have a [[ParameterMap]] internal slot whose value is always undefined. For ordinary argument objects the [[ParameterMap]] internal slot is only used by Object.prototype.toString (
Arguments exotic objects provide alternative definitions for the following internal methods. All of the other exotic arguments object essential internal methods that are not defined below are as specified in
For non-strict functions the integer indexed data properties of an arguments object whose numeric name values are less than the number of formal parameters of the corresponding function object initially share their values with the corresponding argument bindings in the function's
The ParameterMap object and its property values are used as a device for specifying the arguments object correspondence to argument bindings. The ParameterMap object and the objects that are the values of its properties are not directly observable from ECMAScript code. An ECMAScript implementation does not need to actually create or use such objects to implement the specified semantics.
Arguments objects for strict mode functions define non-configurable accessor properties named "caller" and "callee" which throw a "callee" property has a more specific meaning for non-strict functions and a "caller" property has historically been provided as an implementation-defined extension by some ECMAScript implementations. The strict mode definition of these properties exists to ensure that neither of them is defined in any other manner by conforming ECMAScript implementations.
The [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method of an arguments exotic object when called with a property key P performs the following steps:
"caller" and desc.[[Value]] is a strict mode Function object, throw a If an implementation does not provide a built-in caller property for argument exotic objects then step 7 of this algorithm must be skipped.
The [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of an arguments exotic object when called with a property key P and
The [[Get]] internal method of an arguments exotic object when called with a property key P and
The [[Set]] internal method of an arguments exotic object when called with property key P, value V, and
The [[HasProperty]] internal method of an arguments exotic object when called with property key P, performs the following steps:
"caller", thenIf an implementation does not provide a built-in caller property for argument exotic objects then step 2 of this algorithm must be skipped.
The [[Delete]] internal method of an arguments exotic object when called with a property key P performs the following steps:
The abstract operation CreateUnmappedArgumentsObject called with an argument argumentsList performs the following steps:
"length", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: len, [[Writable]]: "callee", PropertyDescriptor {[[Get]]: "caller", PropertyDescriptor {[[Get]]: The abstract operation CreateMappedArgumentsObject is called with object func, parsed grammar phrase formals,
"length", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: len, [[Writable]]: "callee", PropertyDescriptor {[[Value]]: func, [[Writable]]: The abstract operation MakeArgGetter called with String name and
An ArgGetter function is an anonymous built-in function with [[Name]] and [[Env]] internal slots. When an ArgGetter function f that expects no arguments is called it performs the following steps:
ArgGetter functions are never directly accessible to ECMAScript code.
The abstract operation MakeArgSetter called with String name and
An ArgSetter function is an anonymous built-in function with [[Name]] and [[Env]] internal slots. When an ArgSetter function f is called with argument value it performs the following steps:
ArgSetter functions are never directly accessible to ECMAScript code.
An Integer Indexed object is an exotic object that performs special handling of integer index property keys.
Integer Indexed exotic objects have the same internal slots as ordinary objects and additionally [[ViewedArrayBuffer]], [[ArrayLength]], [[ByteOffset]], and [[TypedArrayName]] internal slots.
Integer Indexed exotic objects provide alternative definitions for the following internal methods. All of the other Integer Indexed exotic object essential internal methods that are not defined below are as specified in
When the [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method of an Integer Indexed exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[HasProperty]] internal method of an Integer Indexed exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of an Integer Indexed exotic object O is called with property key P, and
When the [[Get]] internal method of an Integer Indexed exotic object O is called with property key P and
When the [[Set]] internal method of an Integer Indexed exotic object O is called with property key P, value V, and
When the [[OwnPropertyKeys]] internal method of an Integer Indexed exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
The abstract operation IntegerIndexedObjectCreate with arguments prototype and internalSlotsList is used to specify the creation of new Integer Indexed exotic objects. The argument internalSlotsList is a
The abstract operation IntegerIndexedElementGet with arguments O and index performs the following steps:
The abstract operation IntegerIndexedElementSet with arguments O, index, and value performs the following steps:
A module namespace object is an exotic object that exposes the bindings exported from an ECMAScript export * export items. Each String-valued own property key is the StringValue of the corresponding exported binding name. These are the only String-keyed properties of a module namespace exotic object. Each such property has the attributes { [[Writable]]:
Module namespace objects have the internal slots defined in
| Internal Slot | Type | Description |
|---|---|---|
| [[Module]] |
|
The |
| [[Exports]] |
|
A Array.prototype.sort using |
Module namespace exotic objects provide alternative definitions for all of the internal methods.
When the [[GetPrototypeOf]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the [[SetPrototypeOf]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with argument V, the following steps are taken:
When the [[IsExtensible]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the [[PreventExtensions]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
When the [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with property key P and
When the [[HasProperty]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[Get]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with property key P and
"ambiguous".ResolveExport is idempotent and side-effect free. An implementation might choose to pre-compute or cache the ResolveExport results for the [[Exports]] of each module namespace exotic object.
When the [[Set]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with property key P, value V, and
When the [[Delete]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
When the [[OwnPropertyKeys]] internal method of a module namespace exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
The abstract operation ModuleNamespaceCreate with arguments module, and exports is used to specify the creation of new module namespace exotic objects. It performs the following steps:
An immutable prototype exotic object is an exotic object that has an immutable [[Prototype]] internal slot.
When the [[SetPrototypeOf]] internal method of an
A proxy object is an exotic object whose essential internal methods are partially implemented using ECMAScript code. Every proxy objects has an internal slot called [[ProxyHandler]]. The value of [[ProxyHandler]] is an object, called the proxy's handler object, or
| Internal Method | Handler Method |
|---|---|
| [[GetPrototypeOf]] |
getPrototypeOf
|
| [[SetPrototypeOf]] |
setPrototypeOf
|
| [[IsExtensible]] |
isExtensible
|
| [[PreventExtensions]] |
preventExtensions
|
| [[GetOwnProperty]] |
getOwnPropertyDescriptor
|
| [[HasProperty]] |
has
|
| [[Get]] |
get
|
| [[Set]] |
set
|
| [[Delete]] |
deleteProperty
|
| [[DefineOwnProperty]] |
defineProperty
|
| [[OwnPropertyKeys]] |
ownKeys
|
| [[Call]] |
apply
|
| [[Construct]] |
construct
|
When a handler method is called to provide the implementation of a proxy object internal method, the handler method is passed the proxy's target object as a parameter. A proxy's handler object does not necessarily have a method corresponding to every essential internal method. Invoking an internal method on the proxy results in the invocation of the corresponding internal method on the proxy's target object if the handler object does not have a method corresponding to the internal trap.
The [[ProxyHandler]] and [[ProxyTarget]] internal slots of a proxy object are always initialized when the object is created and typically may not be modified. Some proxy objects are created in a manner that permits them to be subsequently revoked. When a proxy is revoked, its [[ProxyHandler]] and [[ProxyTarget]] internal slots are set to
Because proxy objects permit the implementation of internal methods to be provided by arbitrary ECMAScript code, it is possible to define a proxy object whose handler methods violates the invariants defined in
In the following algorithm descriptions, assume O is an ECMAScript proxy object, P is a property key value, V is any
When the [[GetPrototypeOf]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
"getPrototypeOf").[[GetPrototypeOf]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariant:
When the [[SetPrototypeOf]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with argument V, the following steps are taken:
"setPrototypeOf").[[SetPrototypeOf]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariant:
When the [[IsExtensible]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
"isExtensible").[[IsExtensible]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariant:
When the [[PreventExtensions]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
"preventExtensions").[[PreventExtensions]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariant:
When the [[GetOwnProperty]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
"getOwnPropertyDescriptor").[[GetOwnProperty]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
When the [[DefineOwnProperty]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with property key P and
"defineProperty").[[DefineOwnProperty]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
When the [[HasProperty]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
"has").[[HasProperty]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
When the [[Get]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with property key P and
"get").[[Get]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
When the [[Set]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with property key P, value V, and
"set").[[Set]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
When the [[Delete]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with property key P, the following steps are taken:
"deleteProperty").[[Delete]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariant:
When the [[OwnPropertyKeys]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called, the following steps are taken:
"ownKeys").[[OwnPropertyKeys]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
The [[Call]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with parameters thisArgument and argumentsList, a
"apply").A Proxy exotic object only has a [[Call]] internal method if the initial value of its [[ProxyTarget]] internal slot is an object that has a [[Call]] internal method.
The [[Construct]] internal method of a Proxy exotic object O is called with parameters argumentsList which is a possibly empty
"construct").A Proxy exotic object only has a [[Construct]] internal method if the initial value of its [[ProxyTarget]] internal slot is an object that has a [[Construct]] internal method.
[[Construct]] for proxy objects enforces the following invariants:
The abstract operation ProxyCreate with arguments target and handler is used to specify the creation of new Proxy exotic objects. It performs the following steps:
ECMAScript code is expressed using Unicode, version 8.0.0 or later. ECMAScript source text is a sequence of code points. All Unicode code point values from U+0000 to U+10FFFF, including surrogate code points, may occur in source text where permitted by the ECMAScript grammars. The actual encodings used to store and interchange ECMAScript source text is not relevant to this specification. Regardless of the external source text encoding, a conforming ECMAScript implementation processes the source text as if it was an equivalent sequence of
The components of a combining character sequence are treated as individual Unicode code points even though a user might think of the whole sequence as a single character.
In string literals, regular expression literals, template literals and identifiers, any Unicode code point may also be expressed using Unicode escape sequences that explicitly express a code point's numeric value. Within a comment, such an escape sequence is effectively ignored as part of the comment.
ECMAScript differs from the Java programming language in the behaviour of Unicode escape sequences. In a Java program, if the Unicode escape sequence \u000A, for example, occurs within a single-line comment, it is interpreted as a line terminator (Unicode code point U+000A is LINE FEED (LF)) and therefore the next code point is not part of the comment. Similarly, if the Unicode escape sequence \u000A occurs within a string literal in a Java program, it is likewise interpreted as a line terminator, which is not allowed within a string literal—one must write \n instead of \u000A to cause a LINE FEED (LF) to be part of the String value of a string literal. In an ECMAScript program, a Unicode escape sequence occurring within a comment is never interpreted and therefore cannot contribute to termination of the comment. Similarly, a Unicode escape sequence occurring within a string literal in an ECMAScript program always contributes to the literal and is never interpreted as a line terminator or as a code point that might terminate the string literal.
The UTF16Encoding of a numeric code point value, cp, is determined as follows:
Two code units, lead and trail, that form a UTF-16 surrogate pair are converted to a code point by performing the following steps:
There are four types of ECMAScript code:
eval function. More precisely, if the parameter to the built-in eval function is a String, it is treated as an ECMAScript eval is the global code portion of that Function code is generally provided as the bodies of Function Definitions (Function constructor (
An ECMAScript
eval is a Function and Generator constructors is strict mode code if the last argument is a String that when processed is a ECMAScript code that is not strict mode code is called non-strict code.
An ECMAScript implementation may support the evaluation of exotic function objects whose evaluative behaviour is expressed in some implementation defined form of executable code other than via ECMAScript code. Whether a function object is an ECMAScript code function or a non-ECMAScript function is not semantically observable from the perspective of an ECMAScript code function that calls or is called by such a non-ECMAScript function.
The source text of an ECMAScript
There are several situations where the identification of lexical input elements is sensitive to the syntactic grammar context that is consuming the input elements. This requires multiple goal symbols for the lexical grammar. The
The use of multiple lexical goals ensures that there are no lexical ambiguities that would affect automatic semicolon insertion. For example, there are no syntactic grammar contexts where both a leading division or division-assignment, and a leading
a = b
/hi/g.exec(c).map(d);
where the first non-whitespace, non-comment code point after a
a = b / hi / g.exec(c).map(d);
The Unicode format-control characters (i.e., the characters in category “Cf” in the Unicode Character Database such as LEFT-TO-RIGHT MARK or RIGHT-TO-LEFT MARK) are control codes used to control the formatting of a range of text in the absence of higher-level protocols for this (such as mark-up languages).
It is useful to allow format-control characters in source text to facilitate editing and display. All format control characters may be used within comments, and within string literals, template literals, and regular expression literals.
U+200C (ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER) and U+200D (ZERO WIDTH JOINER) are format-control characters that are used to make necessary distinctions when forming words or phrases in certain languages. In ECMAScript source text these code points may also be used in an
U+FEFF (ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE) is a format-control character used primarily at the start of a text to mark it as Unicode and to allow detection of the text's encoding and byte order. <ZWNBSP> characters intended for this purpose can sometimes also appear after the start of a text, for example as a result of concatenating files. In ECMAScript source text <ZWNBSP> code points are treated as white space characters (see
The special treatment of certain format-control characters outside of comments, string literals, and regular expression literals is summarized in
| Code Point | Name | Abbreviation | Usage |
|---|---|---|---|
U+200C
|
ZERO WIDTH NON-JOINER | <ZWNJ> |
|
U+200D
|
ZERO WIDTH JOINER | <ZWJ> |
|
U+FEFF
|
ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE | <ZWNBSP> |
|
White space code points are used to improve source text readability and to separate tokens (indivisible lexical units) from each other, but are otherwise insignificant. White space code points may occur between any two tokens and at the start or end of input. White space code points may occur within a
The ECMAScript white space code points are listed in
| Code Point | Name | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
U+0009
|
CHARACTER TABULATION | <TAB> |
U+000B
|
LINE TABULATION | <VT> |
U+000C
|
FORM FEED (FF) | <FF> |
U+0020
|
SPACE | <SP> |
U+00A0
|
NO-BREAK SPACE | <NBSP> |
U+FEFF
|
ZERO WIDTH NO-BREAK SPACE | <ZWNBSP> |
| Other category “Zs” | Any other Unicode “Separator, space” code point | <USP> |
ECMAScript implementations must recognize as
Other than for the code points listed in
Like white space code points, line terminator code points are used to improve source text readability and to separate tokens (indivisible lexical units) from each other. However, unlike white space code points, line terminators have some influence over the behaviour of the syntactic grammar. In general, line terminators may occur between any two tokens, but there are a few places where they are forbidden by the syntactic grammar. Line terminators also affect the process of automatic semicolon insertion (
A line terminator can occur within a
Line terminators are included in the set of white space code points that are matched by the \s class in regular expressions.
The ECMAScript line terminator code points are listed in
| Code Point | Unicode Name | Abbreviation |
|---|---|---|
U+000A
|
LINE FEED (LF) | <LF> |
U+000D
|
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) | <CR> |
U+2028
|
LINE SEPARATOR | <LS> |
U+2029
|
PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR | <PS> |
Only the Unicode code points in
Comments can be either single or multi-line. Multi-line comments cannot nest.
Because a single-line comment can contain any Unicode code point except a // marker to the end of the line. However, the
Comments behave like white space and are discarded except that, if a
The
This standard specifies specific code point additions: U+0024 (DOLLAR SIGN) and U+005F (LOW LINE) are permitted anywhere in an
Unicode escape sequences are permitted in an \ preceding the u and { } code units, if they appear, do not contribute code points to the \
Two
The definitions of the nonterminal
The sets of code points with Unicode properties “ID_Start” and “ID_Continue” include, respectively, the code points with Unicode properties “Other_ID_Start” and “Other_ID_Continue”.
"$", or "_", or the "$", or "_", or the \ A reserved word is an
The \
The following tokens are ECMAScript keywords and may not be used as
In some contexts yield is given the semantics of an let and static are treated as reserved keywords through static semantic restrictions (see
The following tokens are reserved for used as keywords in future language extensions.
await is only treated as a
Use of the following tokens within
implements
|
package
|
protected
|
|
interface
|
private
|
public
|
The
For example: 3in is an error and not the two input elements 3 and in.
A conforming implementation, when processing
A numeric literal stands for a value of the Number type. This value is determined in two steps: first, a mathematical value (MV) is derived from the literal; second, this mathematical value is rounded as described below.
Once the exact MV for a numeric literal has been determined, it is then rounded to a value of the Number type. If the MV is 0, then the rounded value is 0 digit or the Number value for the MV of a literal produced by replacing each significant digit after the 20th with a 0 digit and then incrementing the literal at the 20th significant digit position. A digit is significant if it is not part of an
0; or
A string literal is zero or more Unicode code points enclosed in single or double quotes. Unicode code points may also be represented by an escape sequence. All code points may appear literally in a string literal except for the closing quote code points, U+005C (REVERSE SOLIDUS), U+000D (CARRIAGE RETURN), U+2028 (LINE SEPARATOR), U+2029 (PARAGRAPH SEPARATOR), and U+000A (LINE FEED). Any code points may appear in the form of an escape sequence. String literals evaluate to ECMAScript String values. When generating these String values Unicode code points are UTF-16 encoded as defined in
A conforming implementation, when processing
The definition of the nonterminal
A line terminator code point cannot appear in a string literal, except as part of a \n or \u000A.
A string literal stands for a value of the String type. The String value (SV) of the literal is described in terms of code unit values contributed by the various parts of the string literal. As part of this process, some Unicode code points within the string literal are interpreted as having a mathematical value (MV), as described below or in
| Escape Sequence | Code Unit Value | Unicode Character Name | Symbol |
|---|---|---|---|
\b
|
0x0008
|
BACKSPACE | <BS> |
\t
|
0x0009
|
CHARACTER TABULATION | <HT> |
\n
|
0x000A
|
LINE FEED (LF) | <LF> |
\v
|
0x000B
|
LINE TABULATION | <VT> |
\f
|
0x000C
|
FORM FEED (FF) | <FF> |
\r
|
0x000D
|
CARRIAGE RETURN (CR) | <CR> |
\"
|
0x0022
|
QUOTATION MARK |
"
|
\'
|
0x0027
|
APOSTROPHE |
'
|
\\
|
0x005C
|
REVERSE SOLIDUS |
\
|
A regular expression literal is an input element that is converted to a RegExp object (see === to each other even if the two literals' contents are identical. A RegExp object may also be created at runtime by new RegExp or calling the RegExp constructor as a function (see
The productions below describe the syntax for a regular expression literal and are used by the input element scanner to find the end of the regular expression literal. The source text comprising the
An implementation may extend the ECMAScript Regular Expression grammar defined in
Regular expression literals may not be empty; instead of representing an empty regular expression literal, the code unit sequence // starts a single-line comment. To specify an empty regular expression, use: /(?:)/.
A conforming implementation must not use the extended definition of
A template literal component is interpreted as a sequence of Unicode code points. The Template Value (TV) of a literal component is described in terms of code unit values (SV,
TV excludes the code units of
Most ECMAScript statements and declarations must be terminated with a semicolon. Such semicolons may always appear explicitly in the source text. For convenience, however, such semicolons may be omitted from the source text in certain situations. These situations are described by saying that semicolons are automatically inserted into the source code token stream in those situations.
In the following rules, “token” means the actual recognized lexical token determined using the current lexical goal symbol as described in clause
There are three basic rules of semicolon insertion:
When, as a
}.
) and the inserted semicolon would then be parsed as the terminating semicolon of a do-while statement (However, there is an additional overriding condition on the preceding rules: a semicolon is never inserted automatically if the semicolon would then be parsed as an empty statement or if that semicolon would become one of the two semicolons in the header of a for statement (see
The following are the only restricted productions in the grammar:
The practical effect of these restricted productions is as follows:
++ or -- token is encountered where the parser would treat it as a postfix operator, and at least one ++ or -- token, then a semicolon is automatically inserted before the ++ or -- token.
continue, break, return, throw, or yield token is encountered and a continue, break, return, throw, or yield token.
The resulting practical advice to ECMAScript programmers is:
++ or -- operator should appear on the same line as its operand.
return or throw statement or an yield expression should start on the same line as the return, throw, or yield token.
break or continue statement should be on the same line as the break or continue token.
The source
{ 1 2 } 3
is not a valid sentence in the ECMAScript grammar, even with the automatic semicolon insertion rules. In contrast, the source
{ 1
2 } 3
is also not a valid ECMAScript sentence, but is transformed by automatic semicolon insertion into the following:
{ 1
;2 ;} 3;
which is a valid ECMAScript sentence.
The source
for (a; b
)
is not a valid ECMAScript sentence and is not altered by automatic semicolon insertion because the semicolon is needed for the header of a for statement. Automatic semicolon insertion never inserts one of the two semicolons in the header of a for statement.
The source
return
a + b
is transformed by automatic semicolon insertion into the following:
return;
a + b;
The expression a + b is not treated as a value to be returned by the return statement, because a return.
The source
a = b
++c
is transformed by automatic semicolon insertion into the following:
a = b;
++c;
The token ++ is not treated as a postfix operator applying to the variable b, because a b and ++.
The source
if (a > b)
else c = d
is not a valid ECMAScript sentence and is not altered by automatic semicolon insertion before the else token, even though no production of the grammar applies at that point, because an automatically inserted semicolon would then be parsed as an empty statement.
The source
a = b + c
(d + e).print()
is not transformed by automatic semicolon insertion, because the parenthesized expression that begins the second line can be interpreted as an argument list for a function call:
a = b + c(d + e).print()
In the circumstance that an assignment statement must begin with a left parenthesis, it is a good idea for the programmer to provide an explicit semicolon at the end of the preceding statement rather than to rely on automatic semicolon insertion.
"arguments" or "eval".
"yield".
"implements", "interface", "let", "package", "private", "protected", "public", "static", or "yield".
yield.
StringValue of
"yield".
"eval" or "arguments", return "yield".
With arguments value and environment.
var statements and formal parameter lists of some non-strict functions (See
"yield", value, environment).
"yield").
The result of evaluating an
In non-strict code, the keyword yield may be used as an identifier. Evaluating the yield as if it was an yield in binding creation contexts.
When processing the production
the interpretation of
this Keyword#See
false.true.
An
Array elements may be elided at the beginning, middle or end of the element list. Whenever a comma in the element list is not preceded by an
With parameters array and nextIndex.
"length", "length", "length", An object initializer is an expression describing the initialization of an Object, written in a form resembling a literal. It is a list of zero or more pairs of property keys and associated values, enclosed in curly brackets. The values need not be literals; they are evaluated each time the object initializer is evaluated.
In certain contexts,
In addition to describing an actual object initializer the
This production exists so that
With parameter symbol.
With parameter symbol.
Static semantic rules that depend upon substructure generally do not look into function definitions.
With parameters object and enumerable.
"name").An alternative semantics for this production is given in
See
See
See
See
"g", "i", "m", "u", or "y", or if it contains the same code point more than once.
With parameter raw.
The abstract operation GetTemplateObject is called with a grammar production, templateLiteral, as an argument. It performs the following steps:
"frozen")."raw", PropertyDescriptor{[[Value]]: rawObj, [[Writable]]: "frozen").The creation of a template object cannot result in an
Each
Future editions of this specification may define additional non-enumerable properties of template objects.
The string conversion semantics applied to the String.prototype.concat rather than the + operator.
The string conversion semantics applied to the String.prototype.concat rather than the + operator.
The string conversion semantics applied to the String.prototype.concat rather than the + operator.
This algorithm does not apply delete and typeof may be applied to parenthesized expressions.
With parameter symbol.
super, return Properties are accessed by name, using either the dot notation:
or the bracket notation:
The dot notation is explained by the following syntactic conversion:
is identical in its behaviour to
and similarly
is identical in its behaviour to
where <identifier-name-string> is the result of evaluating StringValue of
Is evaluated in exactly the same manner as
Is evaluated in exactly the same manner as
new Operator#The abstract operation EvaluateNew with arguments constructProduction, and arguments performs the following steps:
"eval", thenA
The abstract operation EvaluateCall takes as arguments a value ref, a syntactic grammar production arguments, and a Boolean argument tailPosition. It performs the following steps:
The abstract operation EvaluateDirectCall takes as arguments a value func, a value thisValue, a syntactic grammar production arguments, and a Boolean argument tailPosition. It performs the following steps:
super Keyword#The abstract operation GetSuperConstructor performs the following steps:
The abstract operation MakeSuperPropertyReference with arguments propertyKey and strict performs the following steps:
The evaluation of an argument list produces a
A tagged template is a function call where the arguments of the call are derived from a
1 to oldValue, using the same rules as for the + operator (see 1 from oldValue, using the same rules as for the - operator (see 1 to oldValue, using the same rules as for the + operator (see 1 from oldValue, using the same rules as for the - operator (see delete Operator#It is a Syntax Error if the derived
and
The last rule means that expressions such as delete (((foo))) produce early errors because of recursive application of the first rule.