Literals are bracketed in either single or double quotes. That is, a double quote followed by a sequence of characters (here "sequence" does not refer to the cardinality) and ending with a double quote. For example:

"brown cow"

Or a single quote followed by a sequence of characters and ending with a single quote. For example:

'This is so %#@*^ exciting!'

If the sequence of characters includes braces ('{' or '}') it is a string-expression. Any character may be escaped with the backslash character ('\') -- this is useful for including the brace, quote, and backslash characters. Note that single quotes may be included in double quoted strings without being escaped, and visa versa. For example:

"Then she said 'shazam', and abruptly left"

The sequence of characters must not include carriage-return or linefeed. Two adjacent strings are automatically merged at compile-time -- this is convenient for making multiple line strings. Thus:

def greeting = "Hello "
'there';
println( greeting );

will print:

Hello there

When an application displays some text to a user, you'd like the text to be in the user's own language. "Localization" is a mechanism to be able to replace a string literal by a translation selected at run-time.

If a double hash sign ## is prefixed to a string literal, JavaFX substitutes the string literal with a localized one at run-time, if JavaFX finds appropriate localization in JavaFX properties files on the classpath. A JavaFX properties file contains localized strings for a locale as "key" = "value" pairs. Localized strings are searched using the original string literals as keys. If no localized string is found, the original string literal is used as a default. Optionally, explicit keys can be specified with square brackets ([]). For example:

def mon = ##"Monday";
def about = ##[ABOUT]"JavaFX is a cool scripting language!";
println( mon );
println( about );

Suppose this script is Foo.fx, and there is a JavaFX properties file for French Foo_fr.fxproperties, which contains the following localization:

"Monday" = "Lundi"
"ABOUT" = "JavaFX est un langage de script cool !"

The script will print:

Lundi
JavaFX est un langage de script cool !

in French locale. You can also provide layered properties files for finer grained control. For example, you can provide localized texts that are France specific in Foo_fr_FR.fxproperties, and keep other French localized texts that are country independent in Foo_fr.fxproperties. Then the JavaFX searches the appropriate localized texts by attempting the following fallback search in French France (fr_FR) locale:

Foo_fr_FR.fxproperties
Foo_fr.fxproperties
(original string)

For more information on the locale and how the JavaFX properties file is located, refer to java.util.Locale and java.util.ResourceBundle classes of the Java platform.

The encoding of a JavaFX properties file is UTF-8. Other encodings can be specified with the @charset directive. For example:

@charset "ISO-8859-1";

is specified in the first line of the JavaFX properties file, the file is read in ISO-8859-1 encoding. If the string literal contains string-expressions, corresponding properties should only contain the FORMAT_STRING_LITERAL parts of the string expressions, without curly braces and expression parts. For example:

def gCal = new GregorianCalendar(1995, Calendar.MAY, 23);
def bday = ##"The birthday of Duke is {%1$tB gCal} {%2$te gCal}, {%3$tY gCal}.";

Then a JavaFX properties file that contains the localized text for "bday" should look like (e.g., for French):

"The birthday of Duke is %1$tB %2$te, %3$tY." = "L'anniversaire du duc est le %2$te %1$tB %3$tY."

Note that the position of those FORMAT_STRING_LITERAL parts (indicated by [argument_index]$) may change in localized texts.

String-expressions are of String type -- see the Expressions chapter

Integers may be represented in decimal, octal, or hexidecimal formats. Decimal format is the digit 1 through 9 followed by digits in the range 0 through 9, or simply 0 by itself. Octal format is the digit 0 followed by digits in the range 0 through 7. Hexidecimal format is the digit 0 following by 'x' or 'X' then followed by digits in the range 0 through 9 or A through F (upper or lower case). These are all valid Integer literals:

145
0
012
0xFF

Arithmetic operators (+, -, *, /, and mod) operate over and return Integer. Comparison operators (==, <, >=, etc) operate over Integer. The sizeof operator returns Integer.

The following are valid Number literals:

12.3
0.629
3.9e4
1.7662E-34

Arithmetic operators (+, -, *, and /) operate over and return Number. The comparison operators (==, <, >=, etc) operate over Number.

The two, and only, Boolean literals are:

true
false

The not, and, and or operators operate over and return Boolean. The comparison operators (==, <, >=, etc) return Boolean. The if-expression and while-expression take Boolean as their condition.

For example:

10s
4ms
0.5h

Where 10s is ten seconds, 4ms is four milliseconds, 010m is eight minutes, and 0.5h is half an hour.