Question

I have a function that is set up as follows

function mainFunction() {
      function subFunction() {
            var str = "foo";
            return str;
      }
}

var test = mainFunction();
alert(test);

To my logic, that alert should return ‘foo’, but instead it returns undefined. What am I doing wrong?

UPDATE: Here’s my actual code (it’s a function for reverse-geocoding with the Google API)

function reverseGeocode(latitude,longitude){
    var address = "";
    var country = "";
    var countrycode = "";
    var locality = "";

    var geocoder = new GClientGeocoder();
    var latlng = new GLatLng(latitude, longitude);

     return geocoder.getLocations(latlng, function(addresses) {
     address = addresses.Placemark[0].address;
     country = addresses.Placemark[0].AddressDetails.Country.CountryName;
     countrycode = addresses.Placemark[0].AddressDetails.Country.CountryNameCode;
     locality = addresses.Placemark[0].AddressDetails.Country.AdministrativeArea.SubAdministrativeArea.Locality.LocalityName;
     return country;
    });   
   }

Answer 1

you have to call a function before it can return anything.

function mainFunction() {
      function subFunction() {
            var str = "foo";
            return str;
      }
      return subFunction();
}

var test = mainFunction();
alert(test);

Or:

function mainFunction() {
      function subFunction() {
            var str = "foo";
            return str;
      }
      return subFunction;
}

var test = mainFunction();
alert( test() );

for your actual code. The return should be outside, in the main function. The callback is called somewhere inside the getLocations method and hence its return value is not recieved inside your main function.

function reverseGeocode(latitude,longitude){
    var address = "";
    var country = "";
    var countrycode = "";
    var locality = "";

    var geocoder = new GClientGeocoder();
    var latlng = new GLatLng(latitude, longitude);

    geocoder.getLocations(latlng, function(addresses) {
     address = addresses.Placemark[0].address;
     country = addresses.Placemark[0].AddressDetails.Country.CountryName;
     countrycode = addresses.Placemark[0].AddressDetails.Country.CountryNameCode;
     locality = addresses.Placemark[0].AddressDetails.Country.AdministrativeArea.SubAdministrativeArea.Locality.LocalityName;
    });   
    return country
   }