Is my understanding correct when returning functions

1

Hi guys, can you enlighten me as to wht is happening here, is my thinking correct:

function foo() {
	var a = 2;

	function bar() {
		console.log( a );
	}

	return bar;
}

var baz = foo();

baz(); // 2

When foo(); is assigned to var baz (var baz = foo(); ) foo(); runs and assigns function bar(); to baz(); so running baz(); is as if we are running bar(); outside of the scope it was declared in, but because of closure function bar(); which is now theoretically baz(); has closure over the scope of foo(); so it can access the “var a” variable.

Is this correct?

So if we did this:

function foo() {
	var a = 2;

	function bar(x) {
		console.log( a + x );
	}

	return bar;
}

var baz = foo();

baz(3); // 5

in this example is it correct to assume after foo(); is assigned to var baz, baz(3); becomes equivilent to running bar(3); from outside the scope it was declared in.

I understand that you can ot run bar(); outside of the function it was declared in so I am assuming the only way to achieve this is to assign foo(); to var baz (var baz = foo(); ).

2

Yeah, you’ve got it.

Yup. This is an important pattern in JavaScript. You can find great examples of it in Mike Bostock’s D3 examples, in particular his reusable charts.

3

Awesome, thanks for confirming this puts my mind at ease I can move onto something new now because this hs been bugging me forna week! :joy:

I’ve been given a few explenations and they did not seem right so i kept looking into it myself and this was the only one that actually made sence! :slight_smile: