Operators

Arithmetic Operators

Javascript contains all the arithmetic operators that any average person who has taken math courses is used to, as well as several they probably are not. In the table below the seven arithmetic operators are listed along with their name, an example and then the results of that example so you can see them in action. Explanations of some of the more complex is given below the table.

Modulus: This term and how it is portrayed may be new to anybody who hasn't done programming before. Basically it is just the remainder of the equation after division. In the example of 11 / 8. The remainder would of course be 3, since 11 goes into 8 one time, with 3 left over.

Increment: Basically it is what it is, going up in increments of one. This is very commonly used in loops later on when you want to check every single number in a set of numbers or every character in a string. So if you only want to increase something by 1, usually the increment is a good choice.

Decrement: This is the same as increment except for you are going down in increments of one. This is also commonly used in loops when counting down towards a certain value before the loop is exited. If you want to decrease something by 1, the decrement would be a good choice.

Assignment Operators

These operators give the left operand a value based on the right operand. An operand being what is on the left or right of the operator. (e.g. in x = 5, x would be the left operand and 5 would be the right operand. In assignments in JavaScript things always work from right to left. It may seem a bit odd as we are used to working left to right our whole lives out of books.  However in the example of x = 5, it is really saying that 5 is assigned to x. The most basic assignment operator is =. Below in the table are more of them. Keep in mind that the right operand is assigned to the left operand.

Comparison Operators

Comparison operators compare the operands and returns a logical value that is based on whether or not the results of the comparison are true or false. The operands being compared can be either strings or numbers in value. In a comparison there are only two different solutions, either true or false.

Logical Operators

Logical operators are used to combine different expressions to either add or subtract them to produce results.

With and, you are saying that two equations are BOTH true in order for something to be true. Only a true && true will result in a true with an and operator. With an or however, it is only saying that one or the other equation is true. A true or false would be true, as would a true and true, only a false and false will give a false result with an or. It is kind of backwards because or will give you more results, while and will give you less. The not simply is saying that what is inside, has to be false, for it to be true.

String Operators

These are basically operators that help someone deal with text. There is one thing to keep in mind when dealing with text and that is the fact that everything in the quotes is the string. Basically "       hello" is a lot different than "hello". One has a lot more spaces in it. Spaces within the quotes do matter, any spaces outside the quotes do not matter at all. To concatenate two different strings together you use the + sign. Examples of using + to combine strings is shown in the table below.

str1 = Emperor'sHammer. The whole string is bunched together because there are no spaces in the quotes nor was one added in. This is a common error that happens especially when going fast.

str2 = Emperor's Hammer. This string has a space in it, as a " " blank space was added in between the two strings.

str3 = Emperor's Hammer. This is the exact same as str2 except this time the space was there because it was added before Hammer in the original string.

Just remember that spaces are important when dealing with strings or text and that the + operator is what is used to combine them.