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Date: Fri, 17 Jul 2009 10:18:11 +0100
From: Brian Candler <B.Candler@pobox.com>
To: user@couchdb.apache.org
Subject: Why can't I use "var" in map code?
Message-ID: <20090717091811.GA9459@uk.tiscali.com>
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Could somebody explain this subtlety of Javascript to me?

This works fine:

$ curl -X POST -d '{"map":"x=123; function(doc) { emit(x,null); }"}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/mailme/_temp_view
{"total_rows":2,"offset":0,"rows":[
{"id":"54829ded88644559e6c81a7f482c5800","key":123,"value":null},
{"id":"ebf1585feb2109429a0cd62528e8ab4b","key":123,"value":null}
]}

But this doesn't:

$ curl -X POST -d '{"map":"var x=123; function(doc) { emit(x,null); }"}' http://127.0.0.1:5984/mailme/_temp_view
{"error":"compilation_error","reason":"expression does not eval to a function. (var x=123; function(doc) { emit(x,null); })"}

The only difference is the addition of the word 'var'.

(The reason: I'm writing a map function which needs to use a precalculated
lookup table)

Thanks,

Brian.