Question

If I open up a REPL with Coffeescript 1.3.3 and type:

y ?= 5

or

y = 5
y ||= 6

I get an an error that y isn’t defined… For compiling the last one works, but the first still errors.. Is this expected?

Answer 1

coffee> y = 5
5
coffee> y ||= 6
Error: In repl, the variable "y" can't be assigned with ||= because it has not been defined.

This is because each evaluation involves separate compilation. The workaround is to access it as a property of the global object.

coffee> y = 5
5
coffee> global.y
5
coffee> @y
5
coffee> @y &&= 6
6
coffee> y
6