An empty statement is used to provide no statement, although the JavaScript syntax would expect one.
empty
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Syntax
;
Description
The empty statement is a semicolon (;
) indicating that no statement will be executed, even if JavaScript syntax requires one.
The opposite behavior, where you want multiple statements, but JavaScript only allows a single one, is possible using a block statement, which combines several statements into a single one.
Examples
Empty loop body
The empty statement is sometimes used with loop statements. See the following example with an empty loop body:
let arr = [1, 2, 3]; // Assign all array values to 0 for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; arr[i++] = 0) /* empty statement */ ; console.log(arr); // [0, 0, 0]
Unintentional usage
It is a good idea to comment intentional use of the empty statement, as it is not really obvious to distinguish from a normal semicolon.
In the following example, the usage is probably not intentional:
if (condition); // Caution, this "if" does nothing! killTheUniverse() // So this always gets executed!!!
Specifications
Specification |
---|
ECMAScript Language Specification # sec-empty-statement |
Browser compatibility
Desktop | Mobile | Server | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Chrome | Edge | Firefox | Internet Explorer | Opera | Safari | WebView Android | Chrome Android | Firefox for Android | Opera Android | Safari on IOS | Samsung Internet | Deno | Node.js | |
Empty |
3
|
12
|
1
|
3
|
3
|
5
|
1
|
18
|
4
|
10.1
|
4.2
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
0.10.0
|
See also
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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Statements/Empty