What is the reason behind JSLint saying there are “too many var statements”

Question

JSLint (with the onevar flag turned on) is flagging some javascript code that I have with the following:

Problem at line 5 character 15: Too many var statements.         


        

Answer 1

The reasoning is already described.

Recommendation is to use this form:

var myVar1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1"),
  myVar2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");

or this:

var myVar1, myVar2;
myVar1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1");
myVar2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");

But this doesn't look very nice, especially if you want to document vars.

So you can just disable this warning temporarly:

  /*jslint vars: true*/
  /**
   * @returns {HTMLDivElement}
   */
  var myVar1 = document.getElementById("myDiv1");
  /**
   * @returns {HTMLDivElement}
   */
  var myVar2 = document.getElementById("myDiv2");
  /*jslint vars: false*/

Warning: make sure that this is done at the top of a function.

I think this is done because jslint couldn't reliably determine if vars were declared at the top of function or not.