JavaScript Numeric Separator

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JavaScript Numeric Separator

Summary: in this tutorial, you’ll how to use the JavaScript numeric separator to make the numeric literals more readable.

Introduction to the JavaScript numeric separator

The numeric separator allows you to create a visual separation between groups of digits by using underscores (_) as separators.

For example, the following number is very difficult to read especially when it contains long digit repetitions:

const budget = 1000000000;

Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Is this a billion or a hundred million?

The numeric separator fixes this readability issue as follows:

const budget = 1_000_000_000;

Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

As you can see, the number is now very easy to interpret.

JavaScript allows you to use numeric separators for both integer and floating-point numbers. For example:

let amount = 120_201_123.05; // 120201123.05
let expense = 123_450; // 123450
let fee = 12345_00; // 1234500

Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

It’s important to note that all numbers in JavaScript are floating-point numbers.

Also, you can use the numeric separators for factional and exponent parts. For example:

let amount = 0.000_001; // 1 millionth

Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

It’s important to notice that you can use the numeric separator for bigint literal, binary literal, octal literal, and hex literal. For example:

// BigInt
const max = 9_223_372_036_854_775_807n;

// binary
let nibbles = 0b1011_0101_0101;

// octal
let val = 0o1234_5670;

// hex
let message = 0xD0_E0_F0;

Code language: JavaScript (javascript)

Summary

  • Use underscores (_) as the numeric separators to create a visual separation between groups of digits.

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