Chapter 8

Functions

Functions are one of the most powerful and essential notions in programming. Functions like mathematical functions perform transformations, they take input values called arguments and return an output value.

Functions can be created in two ways: using function declaration or function expression . The function name can be omitted in function expression making it an anonymous function. Functions, like variables, must be declared. Let's declare a function double that accepts an argument called x and returns the double of x :

// an example of a function declaration
function double(x) {
  return 2 * x;
}

Note: the function above may be referenced before it has been defined.

Functions are also values in JavaScript; they can be stored in variables (just like numbers, strings, etc ...) and given to other functions as arguments :

// an example of a function expression
let double = function (x) {
  return 2 * x;
};

Note: the function above may not be referenced before it is defined, just like any other variable.

An arrow function is a compact alternative to traditional functions which has some semantic differences with some limitations. These function doesn't have their own bindings to this, arguments and super, and cannot be used as constructors. An example of an arrow function:

const double =  (x) =>  2 * x;

In this chapter, we will explore following topics:

• Closures
• High Order Functions
• Recursive Functions
• Set Interval
• Set Timeout
• This Keyword
• Rest Operator
• Hoisting
• Getters and Setters