Firefox JavaScript changelog

• Unreachable code after return statement (including unreachable expression after semicolon-less return statements) will now show a warning in the console (bug 1005110, bug 1151931).
• Symbol.match has been added (bug 1054755).
• Passing an object which has a property named Symbol.match with a truthy value to String.prototype.startsWith, String.prototype.endsWith, and String.prototype.contains now throws a TypeError (bug 1054755).
• RegExp function returns pattern itself if called without new and pattern object has a property named Symbol.match with a truthy value, and the pattern object's constructor property equals to  RegExp function. (bug 1147817).
• Support for the non-standard JS1.7 destructuring for-in has been dropped (bug 1083498).
• Non-standard initializer expressions have been removed from for...in loops (bug 748550).
• \u{xxxxxx} unicode codepoint in string literals has been added (bug 320500).
• String.prototype.contains has been replaced with String.prototype.includes, String.prototype.contains is kept as an alias (bug 1102219).

• The RegExp constructor no longer throws when the first argument is a RegExp and the second flags argument is present (bug 1108949).
• The Object.prototype.__noSuchMethod__ property is now deprecated and throws a console warning (see bug 1140428 and this platform announcement).
• The implementation of the Proxy object has been updated to comply more with the ES6 specification:
  • The defineProperty and set handlers now need to explicitly return true to be successful, otherwise a TypeError exception will be thrown in strict mode (bug 1132522).
  • If the window object is set as the target, those handlers will now throw a TypeError (bug 828137).
• When using arrow functions (=>), a line terminator (\n) is no longer allowed after arrow function arguments (() \n => {}) (bug 1141392).
• RegExp.prototype.toString is now a generic function (bug 1079919).
• The non-standard flags argument of String.prototype.match(), String.prototype.search(), and String.prototype.replace() is now deprecated and throws a console warning (bug 1142351).
• The try/catch behavior of Object.assign() has been removed to conform with the latest ES6 draft (bug 1103344).

• Generator.prototype.return() is implemented (bug 1115868).
• Setter with a rest parameter is now a SyntaxError (bug 1089632).
• The name property of functions is configurable now (bug 1084019).
• Several Array methods have been implemented for typed arrays as well:
  • The of() and from() methods (bug 896608).
  • The forEach() method (bug 1107645).
  • The filter() and map() methods (bug 1121936).
  • The slice() method (bug 1121935).
• Duplicated parameter name is no longer allowed when rest-parameter is present (bug 1096376).
• Duplicated parameter name is no longer allowed in arrow functions (bug 1096377).
• Duplicated parameter name is no longer allowed in concise method definitions (bug 1096378).
• Warning is shown when Map/Set/WeakMap constructor is called without new (bug 1108930).
• The get, has, and delete methods of WeakMap objects no longer throw when the key parameter is not an object (bug 1127827).
• The optional and non-standard second fallback parameter for WeakMap.prototype.get() has been removed (bug 1127827).
• When defining a generator method, "set" and "get" are no longer invalid names (bug 1073809).
• RegExp.prototype.source now returns "(?:)" instead of an empty string for empty regular expressions (bug 1130798).
• RegExp.prototype.source and RegExp.prototype.toString() now escape regular expression patterns properly (e.g. line terminators, "\n") (bug 1130860).
• The Regexp global, ignoreCase, multiline, and sticky properties are now prototype accessor properties rather than own data properties of RegExp instances (bug 1120169).
• Function.prototype.toString() now throws for Proxy objects (bug 1100936).

• The Map, Set, WeakMap and WeakSet constructors now ignore null iterable (bug 1092538).
• The Map, Set, WeakMap and WeakSet constructors now supports monkey-patched prototype.set or prototype.add (bug 804279).
• The Non-standard String.prototype.quote() method has been removed (bug 1103181).
• The RegExp.prototype.flags property has been implemented (bug 1108467).
• Several Array methods have been implemented for typed arrays as well:
  • The every() and some() methods (bug 1116390).
  • The find() and findIndex() methods (bug 1078975).
  • The fill() method (bug 1113722).
  • The indexOf() and lastIndexOf() methods (bug 1107601).
  • The join() method (bug 1115817).
  • The reduce() and reduceRight() methods (bug 1117350).
  • The reverse() method (bug 1111516).
  • The keys(), values(), and entries() methods (bug 1119217).
• ES6 Proxy enumerate trap is implemented (bug 783829).
• The configurable attribute of the Function.length property is now true per the ES6 specification (bug 911142).
• The development of ParallelJS (PJS) has been discontinued due to the limited future prospects, little attention and code complexity. The experimental implementation that had been enabled only on the Nightly channel, including the Array.prototype.mapPar, filterPar and reducePar methods, has been completely removed.

• The ECMAScript 6 Symbol data type has been enabled by default (was available in the Nightly channel since version 33) (bug 1066322):
  • Symbol
  • Symbol.for()
  • Symbol.keyFor()
  • Object.getOwnPropertySymbols()
• The old placeholder string "@@iterator" has been replaced with the real ES6 well-known symbol Symbol.iterator for the iterable interface property key (bug 918828).
• The spec-internal abstract operation ToNumber(string) now supports binary (0b) and octal (0o) literals, this is a potentially breaking change from ES5 (bug 1079120).
  • Number("0b11") now returns 3, not NaN.
  • "0o11" == 9 now returns true, not false.
• The const declaration is now block-scoped and requires an initializer (bug 611388). It also can not be redeclared anymore (bug 1095439).
  • {const a=1}; a; now throws a ReferenceError and does not return 1 anymore due to block-scoping.
  • const a; now throws a SyntaxError ("missing = in const declaration"): An initializer is required.
  • const a = 1; a = 2; now also throws a SyntaxError ("invalid assignment to const a").
• The ES7 method Array.prototype.includes has been implemented, but for now, it is only enabled in Nightly builds (bug 1069063).
• The delete operator now triggers the "temporal dead zone" when using with let and const (bug 1074571).
• The non-standard let blocks and let expressions are deprecated and will now log a warning in the console. Do not use them anymore, they will be removed in the future.
• WeakMap constructor now handles optional iterable argument (bug 1092537).

• The "temporal dead zone" for let declarations has been implemented. In conformance with ES6 let semantics, the following situations
  now throw errors. See also this newsgroup announcement and bug 1001090.
  • Redeclaring existing variables or arguments using let within the same scope in function bodies is now a syntax error.
  • Using a variable declared using let in function bodies before the declaration is reached and evaluated is now a runtime error.
• ES6 Symbols (only available in the Nightly channel) have been updated to conform with recent specification changes:
  • String(Symbol("1")) now no longer throws a TypeError; instead a string ("Symbol(1)") gets returned (bug 1058396).
• The various TypedArray constructors now have as their [[Prototype]] a single function, denoted %TypedArray%  in ES6 (but otherwise not directly exposed).  Each typed array prototype now inherits from %TypedArray%.prototype.  (%TypedArray% and %TypedArray%.prototype inherit from Function.prototype and Object.prototype, respectively, so that typed array constructors and instances still have the properties found on those objects.)  Typed array function properties now reside on %TypedArray%.prototype and work on any typed array.  See TypedArray and bug 896116 for more information.
• ES6 semantics for prototype mutations using object literals have been implemented (bug 1061853).
  • Now only a single member notated as __proto__:value will mutate the [[Prototype]] in the object literal syntax.
  • Method members like __proto__() {} will not overwrite the [[Prototype]] anymore.

• The ES6 syntax for computed property names on object literals has been implemented (bug 924688).
  • This includes getter and setter method names as well (bug 1048384) and can also be used with destructuring.
• The ES6 shorthand syntax for defining methods on objects has been implemented (bug 924672).
• The ES6 Object method Object.assign() has been implemented (bug 937855).
• ES6 template strings and the String.raw() method are now supported (bug 1038259, bug 1039774).
• A new ES6 object WeakSet has been added (bug 792439).
• ES6 Symbols (only available in the Nightly channel) have been updated to conform with recent specification changes (bug 1042602):
  • When trying to convert a symbol to a number, a TypeError will be thrown now.
  • When using loose equality, Object(sym) == sym returns true now.
• The experimental TypedArray.prototype.move() method (only available in former Nightly and Aurora channels) has been replaced with the now implemented standard ES6 TypedArray.prototype.copyWithin() method (bug 1021379).
• In strict mode, setting a duplicate property name in object literals will no longer throw a SyntaxError as per ES6 specification (bug 1041128).
• In regular expressions (including String.replace), the matched text for a capturing group is now undefined instead of the empty string when that capturing group didn't get consulted because quantifiers prevented its exercise (see bug 369778 and this example code). Note that due to web compatibility, RegExp.$N will still return an empty string (bug 1053944).
• The ES6 spread operator is now supported in destructuring (bug 933276).
• Destructuring now uses iterator protocol instead of array-like protocol (bug 933276).
• Proxy.revocable() has been implemented (bug 978279).

• The non-standard method Number.toInteger() has been removed (bug 1022396).
• The Map.prototype.set(), WeakMap.prototype.set() and Set.prototype.add() methods are now chainable, return their equivalent objects and no longer undefined (bug 1031632).
• A default parameter is evaluated before function declarations inside the function body, so those functions cannot be referred from default parameter (bug 1022962).
• Shorthand properties are now allowed in object literals: if not explicitly defined, property keys are initialized by variables of the same name. E.g. function f(x, y) { return {x, y}; } is equivalent to function f(x, y) { return {x: x, y: y}; } (bug 875002).
• The parsing of yield and yield* has been updated to conform with the latest ES6 specification (bug 981599).
• The non-standard hasOwn trap has been removed (bug 980565).

• The following new ECMAScript 6 built-in methods got implemented:
  • Array.from() (bug 904723),
  • Array.prototype.copyWithin() (bug 934423),
  • Number.isSafeInteger() (bug 1003764).

New ECMAScript 6 features implemented:

• New Array built-in: Array.prototype.fill() (bug 911147)
• New Math function: Math.clz32() (bug 925123)
• New String built-in: String.prototype.normalize() is available in Firefox Desktop (bug 918987).
• New Object method Object.setPrototypeOf().
• New Number constants: Number.MAX_SAFE_INTEGER and Number.MIN_SAFE_INTEGER.
• The ES6 Proxy isExtensible trap have been implemented (bug 978235).

• New ES6-compatible array comprehensions [for (item of iterable) item] and generator comprehensions (for (item of iterable) item) have been implemented (bug 979865).
• Typed arrays are now extensible and support new named properties (bug 695438).
• The Error.prototype.stack property now contains column numbers (bug 762556) and has been improved when using Function() and eval() calls. This can help you to better debug minified or generated JavaScript code.
• The Promise.cast() method has been renamed to Promise.resolve() (bug 966348).

• New ECMAScript 6 String methods: String.prototype.codePointAt() and String.prototype.fromCodePoint() have been implemented (bug 918879).
• The ECMAScript Internationalization API (ECMA-402) has been implemented and is now enabled by default in Firefox Desktop (bug 853301):
  • New objects in the new Intl object namespace:
    • Intl.Collator
    • Intl.DateTimeFormat
    • Intl.NumberFormat
  • The following methods of String, Number and Date have been updated to include the locales and options arguments per ECMA-402:
    • String.prototype.localeCompare()
    • Number.prototype.toLocaleString()
    • Date.prototype.toLocaleString()
    • Date.prototype.toLocaleDateString()
    • Date.prototype.toLocaleTimeString()
• To match the updated ECMAScript6 draft specification, the Map and Set objects now treat -0 and +0 as the same when checking for key and value equality.
• Promise has been enabled by default (bug 918806).
• Completed generators now return an IteratorResult object instead of throwing (bug 958951).
• A malformed JSON string parsed by JSON.parse() now yields a more detailed error message containing the line and column number that caused the parsing error. This is useful when debugging large JSON data.
• The ArrayBuffer.isView() method has been added (bug 896105).

• ECMAScript 6 (Harmony) implementation continues:
  • New Array methods have been implemented: Array.prototype.entries() and Array.prototype.keys() (bug 894658).
• A bug causing that Object.getOwnPropertyNames() did not see unresolved properties of Error objects has been fixed (bug 724768).

EcmaScript 6 (Harmony) implementation continues!

• The spread operator is now supported in Function calls (bug 762363).
• The mathematical function Math.hypot() has been implemented (bug 896264).
• The yield* expression is now implemented (bug 666396).
• The MapIterator, SetIterator and ArrayIterator objects now match the specification (bug 881226).
• for..of loops now expect the ES6 standard iterator protocol moving away from SpiderMonkey old iterator protocol using StopIteration.
• String.match and String.replace now reset RegExp.lastIndex (bug 501739).

EcmaScript 6 (Harmony) implementation continues!

• The ECMAScript 6 compliant syntax for Generators (yield) has been implemented (bug 666399).
• Generator/Iterator results are now boxed like { value: foo, done: bool } (bug 907744).
• New mathematical methods have been implemented on Math: Math.fround() (bug 900125).
• The reserved words cannot be used for function names:such a usage now throws a SyntaxError (bug 907958).
• The default parameter syntax has been updated to allow parameters without defaults after default parameters, such as function f(x=1, y). See bug 777060.
• GeneratorFunction is implemented (bug 904701).

EcmaScript 6 (Harmony) implementation continues!

• The method Array.of() is now implemented on Array (bug 866849).
• Support for the methods Array.prototype.find() and Array.prototype.findIndex() has been added (bug 885553).
• The methods Number.parseInt() and Number.parseFloat() have been implemented (bug 886949)
• The methods Map.prototype.forEach() and Set.prototype.forEach() are now implemented (bug 866847).
• New mathematical methods have been implemented on Math: Math.log10(), Math.log2(), Math.log1p(), Math.expm1(), Math.cosh(), Math.sinh(), Math.tanh(), Math.acosh(), Math.asinh(), Math.atanh(), Math.trunc(), Math.sign() and Math.cbrt() (bug 717379).
• Support for binary and octal integer literals has been added: 0b10101010, 0B1010, 0o777, 0O237 are now valid (bug 894026).
• The machine epsilon constant, that is the smallest representible number that added to 1 will not be 1, is now available as Number.EPSILON (bug 885798).
• Typed arrays have been updated to no longer search in the prototype chain for indexed properties (bug 829896).

• Arrow functions are no longer automatically in strict mode unless explicitly requested with "use strict" (bug 852762).
• The String.prototype.repeat JS method has been implemented (bug 815431).
• The Set.prototype.values(), Set.prototype.keys() and Set.prototype.entries() methods on Set objects have been implemented (bug 869996).

• The Object.defineProperty method can now be used to redefine the length property of an Array object.
• The option to disable JavaScript, including the options to allow moving windows/replace context menu, have been removed. You may still disable JavaScript by double clicking the "javascript.enabled" option in about:config.

• Asm.js optimizations are enabled, making it possible to compile C/C++ applications to a subset of JavaScript for better performance.
• ES6 Arrow Function syntax has been implemented (bug 846406).
• The new Object.is function has been added (bug 839979).
• arguments in generator expressions is now inherited from enclosing lexical scope (bug 848051).
• The ES6 Proxy preventExtensions trap have been implemented (bug 789897).

• E4X, an ancient JavaScript extension, has been removed. Implemented only in Gecko, it never got significant traction (bug 788293).
• parseInt no longer treats strings with leading "0" as octal (bug 786135).

• Support for the Weakmap.prototype.clear() method, recently added to the Harmony (EcmaScript 6) draft proposal has been added (bug 814562).
• Support for the Math.imul() method, a C-style 32-bit multiplication function. Though proposed for Harmony (EcmaScript 6) it has not yet accepted and still is non-standard (bug 808148).
• Web apps using draggable text with Kinetic 3.x are working, even when using the Cairo canvas backend (bug 835064).
• The for each…in statement has been deprecated and should not be used. Consider using the new for…of statement (bug 804834).
• Support for the Map.prototype.keys(), Map.prototype.values(), and Map.prototype.entries() has been added (bug 817368).

• Map and Set objects have changed from having a size() method to a size property (bug 807001)
• Map and Set objects also have a clear() method now. (bug 805003)

• Harmony's (ECMAScript 6) Direct Proxies have been landed (bug 703537). Warning: the implementation contains a couple of known bugs, missing features and misalignements with the current state of the spec. Do not rely on it for production code.
• The ECMAScript 6 contains() method is now implemented on strings. This is unfortunately not compatible with Mootools 1.2, which expects different behavior from contains() on strings but does not ensure it. Newer versions of Mootools fix this issue; sites should upgrade their Mootools version to something newer than 1.2.

• String object now offers Harmony startsWith, endsWith, and contains methods (bug 772733).
• The String methods link and anchor now escape the '"' (quotation mark) (bug 352437).
• Experimental support for strawman ParallelArray object has been implemented (bug 778559).
• Support to iterate Map/Set (bug 725909).
• Disabled E4X for web content by default (bug 778851).
• __exposedProps__ must now be set for Chrome JavaScript objects exposed to content. Attempts to access Chrome objects from content without __exposedProps__ set will fail silently (bug 553102).
• for..of loops now work in terms of .iterator() and .next() (bug 725907).

• Number objects now offer isFinite(), toInteger(), and isInteger() methods. (bug 761480, bug 761495)
• The Harmony spread operator is now supported in Array initializers (bug 574130). Note it is not yet supported in calls (bug 762363).
• The experimental TypedArray.prototype.move() method has been added (available in Aurora and Nightly channels only) (bug 730873).

• Support for the DataView interface from the Typed Arrays specification has been added. This provides low-level access to the data contained in an ArrayBuffer.
• Support for new ECMAScript 6 built-ins:  Number.isNaN(), Number.toInteger(), Number.isInteger(), Number.isFinite() has been added. (bug 749818, bug 761495, bug 761480).
• Support for ECMAScript 6 default parameters has been added. (bug 757676).
• Support for ECMAScript 6 rest parameters has been added. (bug 574132).

No change.

• Support for the ECMAScript 6 for..of construct has been added.
• Experimental support for ECMAScript 6 Map and Set objects has been implemented.

• Support for sharp variables (a Netscape non-standard extension) has been dropped.
• ArrayBuffer.prototype.slice() has been implemented.

No change.

• The method WeakMap.set() now returns undefined, instead of itself.
• A bug was introduced in regular expression handling in Firefox 7; this has been fixed. See bug 683838 if you want the gory details.
• You can no longer use E4X syntax while in ECMAScript 5 strict mode (that is, after "use strict;").

No change.

• RegExp.exec() and RegExp.test() called with no arguments now match against the string "undefined".
• String.search() and String.match() called with no arguments or undefined now match against the empty string and thus match every string.
• Support for watchlists has been implemented with the new (non-standard) watch() and unwatch() methods.

• The Function.arity property has been removed; use Function.length instead.

• In the past, it was possible to use the new operator on several built-in functions (eval, parseInt, Date.parse...) that should not have allowed it, according to the specification. This behavior is no longer supported. Using the new operator in this way was never officially supported and was not widely done, so it's unlikely that this change affects you.
• ECMAScript Harmony WeakMaps have been added as a prototype implementation.

• Regular expressions are no longer callable as if they were functions; this change has been made in concert with the WebKit team to ensure compatibility (see WebKit bug 28285. This feature had existed for a long time but was never documented (at least, not here on MDC).
• The Function.prototype.isGenerator() method is now supported; this lets you determine if a function is a generator.
• The following reserved words were previously only treated as reserved when in strict mode; now they're always treated as reserved: class, enum, export, extends, import, and super.
• DOM documents created in chrome code may no longer be exposed to sandboxed scripts.
• The JSON parser has been re-written for improved speed and compliance. This includes a fix for bug 572279.

For versions prior to Firefox 5, see the old JavaScript versions.