Question

I am a C++ ( Qt ) developer and know JS a bit. I am not able to understand a part of below code. Can you please help me with this?

function augment(withFn) {
    var name, fn;
    for (name in window) {
        fn = window[name];

        if (typeof fn === 'function') {
    // **Not able to understand below code.**
            window[name] = (function(name, fn) {
                var args = arguments;
                return function() {
                    withFn.apply(this, args);
                    fn.apply(this, arguments);

                }
            })(name, fn);
    // **In above code I understood everything else except this last line. 
    // Why whole function is in circular bracket? Why it ends with (name, fn);
    // What is the meaning of this?
        }
    }
}

augment(function(name, fn) {
    console.log("calling " + name);
});

Answer 1

The self executed anonymous function is a common way to solve an issue with closures in a loops.

So it’s practically an anonymous function that is declared and executed immediately with passed parameters.

Actually name parameter is useless there, since it’s not used, but if you didn’t do the trick – then only the last fn parameter would be passed as a reference.

The demonstration of the issue: http://jsfiddle.net/zerkms/nfjtn/

The solution (using the self-executing anonymous function): http://jsfiddle.net/zerkms/nfjtn/1/