# Lexical environment of functions in JavaScript

All external variables available to the function are called its Lexical Environment

In the following function example, two variables are available: `num1` and `num2`, which are the lexical environment of our function:

`let num1 = 1; let num2 = 2; function func() { // the function knows about the variables num1 and num2 }`

The lexical environment itself is some kind of internal JavaScript object attached to our function. In this case, it can be represented as follows:

`{num1: 1, num2: 2}`

The value of any lexical environment variable is always equal to the current value of that variable:

`let num1 = 1; // environment {num1: 1} let num2 = 2; // environment {num1: 1, num2: 2} // Let's change the variable num1: num1 = 123; // environment {num1: 123, num2: 2} function func() { }`

When we try to refer to some variable inside a function, this variable is first looked up among the local variables of the function and, if such a variable is not there, then it is looked up in the lexical environment of the function.

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