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Errors: Cant access lexical declaration before init

Message

ReferenceError: can't access lexical declaration `X' before initialization (Firefox)
ReferenceError: 'x' is not defined (Chrome)

Error type

ReferenceError

What went wrong?

A lexical variable was accessed before it was initialized. This happens within any block statement, when let or const declarations are accessed before they are defined.

Examples

Invalid cases

In this case, the variable "foo" is redeclared in the block statement using let.

function test() {
  let foo = 33;
  if (true) {
    let foo = (foo + 55); 
    // ReferenceError: can't access lexical 
    // declaration `foo' before initialization
  }
}
test();

Valid cases

To change "foo" inside the if statement, you need to remove the let that causes the redeclaration.

function test(){
   let foo = 33;
   if (true) {
      foo = (foo + 55);
   }
}
test();

See also

© 2005–2018 Mozilla Developer Network and individual contributors.
Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Errors/Cant_access_lexical_declaration_before_init