no-undef

Disallow the use of undeclared variables unless mentioned in /*global */ comments

This rule can help you locate potential ReferenceErrors resulting from misspellings of variable and parameter names, or accidental implicit globals (for example, from forgetting the var keyword in a for loop initializer).

Rule Details

Any reference to an undeclared variable causes a warning, unless the variable is explicitly mentioned in a /*global ...*/ comment, or specified in the globals key in the configuration file. A common use case for these is if you intentionally use globals that are defined elsewhere (e.g. in a script sourced from HTML).

Examples of incorrect code for this rule:

/*eslint no-undef: "error"*/

var foo = someFunction();
var bar = a + 1;
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Examples of correct code for this rule with global declaration:

/*global someFunction, a*/
/*eslint no-undef: "error"*/

var foo = someFunction();
var bar = a + 1;
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Note that this rule does not disallow assignments to read-only global variables. See no-global-assign if you also want to disallow those assignments.

This rule also does not disallow redeclarations of global variables. See no-redeclare if you also want to disallow those redeclarations.

Options

• typeof set to true will warn for variables used inside typeof check (Default false).

typeof

Examples of correct code for the default { "typeof": false } option:

/*eslint no-undef: "error"*/

if (typeof UndefinedIdentifier === "undefined") {
    // do something ...
}
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You can use this option if you want to prevent typeof check on a variable which has not been declared.

Examples of incorrect code for the { "typeof": true } option:

/*eslint no-undef: ["error", { "typeof": true }] */

if(typeof a === "string"){}
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Examples of correct code for the { "typeof": true } option with global declaration:

/*global a*/
/*eslint no-undef: ["error", { "typeof": true }] */

if(typeof a === "string"){}
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Environments

For convenience, ESLint provides shortcuts that pre-define global variables exposed by popular libraries and runtime environments. This rule supports these environments, as listed in Specifying Environments. A few examples are given below.

browser

Examples of correct code for this rule with browser environment:

/*eslint no-undef: "error"*/
/*eslint-env browser*/

setTimeout(function() {
    alert("Hello");
});
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Node.js

Examples of correct code for this rule with node environment:

/*eslint no-undef: "error"*/
/*eslint-env node*/

var fs = require("fs");
module.exports = function() {
    console.log(fs);
};
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When Not To Use It

If explicit declaration of global variables is not to your taste.

Compatibility

This rule provides compatibility with treatment of global variables in JSHint and JSLint.

Handled by TypeScript

It is safe to disable this rule when using TypeScript because TypeScript's compiler enforces this check.

Related Rules

• no-global-assign
• no-redeclare

Version

This rule was introduced in ESLint v0.0.9.

Resources

• Rule source
• Tests source