Context Sensitive Keywords

Effect

Since many keywords are used around variable declaration, differing support for variables can lead to ambiguous parse trees which can lead to different scoping.

Background

Different browsers support different sets of reserved keywords. E.g. const can be used as a variable name in IE, but is used to mark a variable constant in Firefox.

Assumptions

Rendered javascript can contain keywords that have a special meaning in some browsers, and/or rendered output contains newlines.

Versions

IE at least.

Example

this['const'] = 0;
const
alert = f();                    // looks like an assignment to self.

function f() { return alert; }  // looks like a reference to an undefined local.

alert('hello world');

Since const is on a different line than alert, IE will insert semicolons and interpret this as

this['const'] = 0;               // avoid undefined property error later.
const;                           // const now looks like an unused reference.
alert = f();                     // assigns to self.

function f() { return alert; }   // reference to a global.

alert('hello world');            // call the global function alert