How can you have a global variable defined inside a scope?

[damianroiz]

I am trying to have this exercise resolved by following the theory of having a global variable defined outside of a scope, however, when I do that, the function is not referring to function i.

The solution for this exercise is confusing me even more, as I see that no variable is even declared outside of the scope. Here is the code I am trying to have working out.

what am I missing ?

  **Your code so far**

let i = 'function scope';

function checkScope() {
if (let i = "block scope";) {  
  console.log('Block scope i is: ', i);
}
console.log('Function scope i is: ', i);
return i;
}

console.log(checkScope());

  **Your browser information:**

User Agent is: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64; rv:93.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/93.0

Challenge: Compare Scopes of the var and let Keywords

Link to the challenge:

freeCodeCamp.org

[Jagaya]

I can’t even run that code because you put the declaration into the if-condition.

The “scope” for “let” is everything inside the {} where it’s written within and all “children” (nested {} ). Meaning once you close these brackets, the variable will no longer exist.

So far for the scope.
If you put the declaration into the if-case instead of the condition, you might even get a reasonable result.

[ArielLeslie]

@damianroiz

let i = 'function scope';

function checkScope() {
if (let i = "block scope";) { 

Putting a variable declaration inside an if condition doesn’t make any sense, but if we ignore that bit… You have declared two different i variables because you used let both times. Declaring a local variable that happens to have the same name as a global variable is fine. Within the scope of the local variable, that name will refer to the local variable and the global one will be untouched.

[damianroiz]

Yest you’re right, the declaration should go outside of the if-condition but I am still trying to figure out the solution published on this exercise as it shows an apparent function of global scope inside a block function.

[damianroiz]

I am still puzzled of why this is not a valid solution to this exercise, considering that the global function is defined outside of the scope

let i = 'function scope';

function checkScope() {
  if (true) {  
    let i = "block scope";
    console.log('Block scope i is: ', i);
  }
  console.log('Function scope i is: ', i);
  return i;
}

console.log(checkScope());

[ArielLeslie]

@damianroiz

let i = 'function scope';

You gave this variable the value “function scope” but it isn’t in the function scope. It’s in the global scope because it is outside the function.

[Jagaya]

You are right in general - however the test cases don’t include a test for that.
Instead it’s failing the “i in the if-statement should be ‘block scope’” test. Even though this isn’t affected.