What do {curly braces} around javascript variable name mean [duplicate]

Solution 1:

This is what's known as a destructuring assignment, and it's a new feature of JavaScript 1.7 (and ECMAScript 6) (Currently, only available as part of the Firefox JavaScript engine.) Roughly, it would translate into this:

var ActionButton = require("sdk/ui/button/action").ActionButton;

It seems silly in this example, as there's only one item being assigned. However, you'd be able to use this pattern to assign multiple variables at once:

{x, y} = foo;

Is the equivalent to:

x = foo.x;
y = foo.y;

This can also be used for arrays. For example, you could easily swap two values without using a temporary variable:

var a = 1;
var b = 3;

[a, b] = [b, a];

Browser support can be tracked using kangax' ES6 compatibility table.