Can global constants be declared in JavaScript?

Question

If so, what is the syntax for such a declaration?

Answer 1

Javascript doesn't really have the notion of a named constant, or an immutable property of an object. (Note that I'm not talking about ES5 here.)

You can declare globals with a simple var declaration in the global scope, like outside any function in a script included by a web page:

<script>
  var EXACTLY_ONE = 1;

Then your code can use that constant of course, though it's not really "constant" because the value can be changed (the property updated, in other words).

edit — this is an ancient answer to an ancient question. In 2019, there's the const declaration that's supported just about everywhere. However note that like let, const scoping is different from var scoping.

Answer 2

As "Pointy" so carefully notes, ECMAscript has no such feature. However, JavaScript does:

const a = 7;
document.writeln("a is " + a + ".");

Of course, if you're writing code to put on the web to run in web browsers, this might not help you much. :-)

Answer 3

Everything is global unless declared with the var keyword.

There are no constants either. You can simply declare them without the var keyword.

If you want to ensure global scope you can throw it into the window object:

window.GLOBAL_CONSTANT = "value";

You can do this from within any scope. Constants can then be declared inside functions or closures, though I wouldn't recommend that.

Answer 4

If you only care about supporting newer browsers (or are using a transpiler such as Babel to support older browsers) you can do the following:

1. Create a settings.js file with whatever constants you want and export them:

export const FRUIT = "kiwi";
export const VEGETABLE = "carrot";

2. In files that you want to use them you could then import them as follows:

import * as Settings from './settings.js'

3. Then to use the constants do something like this:

console.log("The unchangeable fruit is " + Settings.FRUIT);

This is a much cleaner approach than trying to implement a global constant, especially when you have multiple JavaScript files that you want to use the constants in.

Answer 5

You could do it with getters and setters like so:

Object.defineProperty(window, 'TAU', { 
    get: function(){return Math.PI*2;}
});

If you want a general function to do this:

function define(name, value){
    Object.defineProperty(window, name, { 
       get: function(){return value;},
       set: function(){throw(name+' is a constant and cannot be redeclared.');},
    });
}

// Example use
define('TAU', Math.PI*2);

Answer 6

If you want to make sure the value cannot change use a function.

So, instead of:

var Const_X=12

use:

function Const_X() {
return 12;
}

Answer 7

The direct answer to the question is No. It would really help though if ECMA/JS made a way to easily do functional programming. A workable hack I use to get around this is to declare a const in the global scope and use a wrapper function see example below:

:)

global_var = 3; //This can change say inside a function etc. but once you decide to make 
                //this global variable into a constant by calling on a function
const make_variable_constant = function(variable)
{
    const constant = variable;
    return constant;
}

const const_global = make_variable_constant(global_var);

:)

Way back when object oriented programming was the hype a kid in my class told the C instructor that C isn't object oriented to which the instructor said he's done object oriented programming in C before Java and C++ were even conceived. Likewise you can do functional programming in Javascript but its much harder. Its like doing Object-oriented programming in C when its easier to do it in C++.

Answer 8

For the record.

// ES6+ code:
const CONSTGLOBAL1=200;  // it is a constant global

function somef() { 
   document.write(CONSTGLOBAL1); // CONSTGLOBAL1 is defined (because it's global)
   const CONSTLOCAL=200; // it's a local constant
   document.write(CONSTLOCAL); // CONSTLOCAL is defined
}       
somef();
document.write(CONSTLOCAL); // CONSTLOCALis NOT defined.

So, if the constant is defined inside {} then it's local, otherwise, it's global.

Answer 9

Similar to kojow7's answer, but instead of using grabbing all named exports I like to use one named export e.g. Constants and then declare my constants like this:

1. Create a Constants.js file with declaring your constants like this and export Constants:

// Constants.js
export const Constants = {
  FRUIT: "kiwi",
  VEGETABLE: "carrot",
};

2. Make a named import in the files you need a constant:

import { Constants } from './Constants';

3. Then use the constants as follows:

console.log("The unchangeable fruit is " + Constants.FRUIT);

There seems to be no downfall to use the one over the other option, but what I like personally is that I just name the file as I want to import it import { Constants } from './Constants'; and not always think about how I call it when grabbing all named exports import * as Constants from './Constants'. So in the second case I might want to look in another file where I imported already the constants and look how I named the import in case of consistency. Have a look also here for the different export/import possibilities.

Answer 10

If you're not planning to change the value of any object properties, you can use Object.freeze():

window.globalConst = Object.freeze( { x: 1, y: true } );

The following demonstrates the difference between const and Object.freeze():

const x = Object.freeze({
  a: 1,
  b: 2
});

x.a = 3;

// x.a is still = 1
console.log("x.a = ", x.a);

const y = {
  a: 1,
  b: 2
};

y.a = 3;

// y.a has been changed to 3
console.log("y.a = ", y.a);