Display variable within an external .js file

I just started working with javascript a few weeks ago. If i create an external javascript file with the following

var maintext="This text needs to be displayed"

and save it as "external.js" What code do i need to put in an html document to display this variable? is the syntax for the javascript file correct?

If you reference the external file in the page's head section, the variable will be available to subsequent javascript.
To test it, you could use another in-page script that "alerts" it. A simple way would be to "document.write" it wherever you want it to appear. But the correct way to do this would be to have some in-head script modify the DOM

Thanks man, that was just what I was lookin for.