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JavaScript JavaScript Foundations Numbers Creating Numbers: Part 2

Posted by Richard Reis
Richard Reis
Courses Plus Student 8,907 Points

Is this a bug?

I tried to do the second task therefore I wrote:

var mevol = 018;

But it keeps giving me an error.

This is a very simple task so either I'm making a huge mistake without realizing it or there's a bug.

3 Answers

Holger Liesegang
Holger Liesegang
50,595 Points
Holger Liesegang
Holger Liesegang
50,595 Points

Hi Ricardo,

Challenge task 2 of 2 of "Create a variable named "mevol" and assign the value 16 to it using an octal number literal." asks you to assign an octal literal of 16 to the variable and that would be 020:

var mevol = 020;
Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points
Andrew McCormick
Andrew McCormick
17,730 Points

Quick explanation of why 020 is correct. In octal the first number is the number of eights and the second is the number of ones. Examples: Octal = base 10 equivalent
03 = 3 //zero eights and 3 ones
10 = 8 // 1 eight and zero ones
017 = 15 // one eight plus 7 ones
020 = 16 // two eights and zero ones

remember that in Octal you only have the numbers 0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7 to use.

Dino Paškvan
Dino Paškvan
Courses Plus Student 44,108 Points

It might be time to remove this part of the deep dive. Octal literals have been deprecated since ES3 (in strict mode). They're only still allowed for backwards compatibility.

ES6 will have a different octal/binary literal syntax which will make more sense and appear less confusing.

Richard Reis
PLUS
Richard Reis
Courses Plus Student 8,907 Points
Richard Reis
Richard Reis
Courses Plus Student 8,907 Points

Thank you everyone for your help I completely understand it now

Richard Reis
PLUS
Richard Reis
Courses Plus Student 8,907 Points
Richard Reis
Richard Reis
Courses Plus Student 8,907 Points

And I agree with Dino Paškvan