7.2 Constants

Constants differ from variables in that they do not change value. You can use constants as a way of using easily-remembered names to store hard to remember strings of letters or numbers. You can think of a constant as a number or group of letters or words that you give or assign a new name. You create constants purely for mnemonic reasons since it is easier to remember a name than a number or long group of letters or words.

JAWS has no restrictions to how many constant names you can assign to a number. For example, in the default JAWS constants file, HJConst.jsh, the script developers at Freedom Scientific have assigned both of the constants True and On the same value of 1. Since both True and On represent the value of 1, you can write a script statement to check a condition for values of True, On, or 1. JAWS considers all of these constants as having the same value once you declare the constants.

There are several advantages to using constants in your scripts.

First, you may find it more difficult to remember that when something has a value of 1 then it is also true. It is also easier to understand the difference between true and false.

Second, when someone else is reading your script file, it is much easier for them to understand what you were trying to do if they see well-named constants instead of numbers.

Finally, if you need to change the value of a number that is used in several places, you can change all of them at once if you have used a constant to represent that number. You need only change the value of the constant declaration.

Declaring Constants

You can declare constants at the beginning of a script file. You begin the constant declaration with the key word, Const. You follow each constant declaration with a comma except for the last entry. An example of a constant declaration follows:

Const
True = 1,
False = 0,
On = 1,
Off = 0

You can also declare constants in a script header file. You can create your own script header file to store your constant definitions. When you create a file to store your constant declarations, don't forget to include the file in any script file in which you want to use those constants.

Since many of the built-in functions accept constant values as parameters, you can also use the constants defined in the default constant file, HJConst.jsh. This file is also included in the default script file, default.jss. Although you can use the constants declared in this file in your own script files, you should not add your own constant declarations to this file.

 

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