Javascript

Template literals are syntaxed ${…}

In JavaScript, strings can be written in three ways:

'string'        // single quotes
"string"        // double quotes
`string`        // backticks → template literal

Only template literals (backticks) support interpolation using: ${expression}

Inside ${…}, you can put any valid JavaScript expression:

• variables
• function calls
• arithmetic
• ternaries
• property access

const name = 'Alex';
`Hello ${name}!`;

This produces:

Hello Alex!

Template literals can be very useful to replace long lists of 'string' + var + 'string' + var …

'Tag: ' + tag_autospawn + ' - Spawned car ' + suffix

This works, but:

• It’s visually noisy
• Easy to miss a space
• Harder to refactor
• Encourages line-breaking when long

The template literal equivalent is:

`Tag: ${tag_autospawn} - Spawned car ${suffix}`

Same result, much clearer structure.

A template literal is:

• One string
• With embedded expressions
• Much easier to keep visually compact

So this: 'foo ' + a + ' bar ' + b + ' baz ' + c

Becomes: `foo ${a} bar ${b} baz ${c}`

Inside ${}, you can do more:

`UV: ${car_uv.toFixed(2)}`
 
`State: ${isActive ? 'ON' : 'OFF'}`
 
`Next index: ${pointer + 1}`

This is real code, not just substitution.

Template literals:

• Are evaluated at runtime
• Produce a normal string
• Have no performance penalty compared to concatenation in modern JS engines
• Are fully supported in ES6+ (basically everything now)

So: 'Hello ' + name

and: `Hello ${name}`

Compile down to equivalent bytecode in modern engines.

Template literals also preserve newlines exactly as written:

`Line 1
Line 2
Line 3`

This is extremely useful for logs, SQL, shaders, etc.

Template literals use backticks, not quotes

${} is not jQuery or shell syntax — it’s JS-only

Don’t confuse ${} with $(…) (shell / jQuery)

• ${…} is expression interpolation inside template literals
• It replaces string concatenation cleanly
• It improves readability and formatter behavior
• It’s safe, modern, and efficient
• It’s the idiomatic way to build strings in modern JS