I basically want to know how global variables work in a javascript/JQuery environment. I am most familiar with a language called processing which I've been told is java-based. I expected variables in javascript and JQuery to behave like the ones in processing, but they do NOT work as I expect and I cannot for the life of me wrap my head around it.

I have a very simple example made up to illustrate my confusion:

 var what="";

 $(document).ready(function(){
      $("p").click(function () {
           what="p";
           });
      if(what=="p"){
            alert(what);
           }//end if
 });//end doc ready

In processing, this would work because the 'what' variable is global and as it is changed by clicking on a paragraph, the if statement should be continuously checking to see if 'what'=='p', and trigger the alert. But that is not what happens-- 'what' only seems to be updated WITHIN the click function, even though it is a global variable, so when it comes to the if statement, 'what' still equals "" instead of "p".

If someone could explain why this happens, I will be very grateful!

The if statement only runs once when the DOM is first ready. It is not running continuously. If you want it to run during the click handler, then you would use this code:

 var what="";

 $(document).ready(function(){
    $("p").click(function () {
       what="p";
       if(what=="p"){
           alert(what);
       }//end if
    });
});//end doc ready

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