Question

I’m having some trouble understanding how both of these two lines are inter-changeable.

( function() { return console.log("anon inner 1"); } ) ();
//                                                     ^^ invoke

( function() { return console.log("anon inner 2"); } () );
//                                                   ^^ invoke

In the first line, we have an anonymous inner function that is wrapped in parenthesis, and then immediately invoked. The second line, we have an anonymous inner function that is invoked and then wrapped in parentheses.

I guess my question is, what does the wrapping in parenthesis do? Does it objectify stuff, that is, turn things into object?

Answer 1

JavaScript has a function statement, which is the “standard” way to declare a function, with the syntax:

function name([param1, 2...]) {
   statements
}

And there is a function operator, which looks the same as the function statement except that the name is optional and it is used not as a statement on its own but where an expression is expected as in the following two examples:

// declare variable name that references a function created by expression
var name = function([param1, 2...]) { statements };
// call someOtherFunction that expects a function as a parameter
someOtherFunction(function() { });

(There are plenty of other ways to use function expressions.)

If you try to have an anonymous function on a line by itself without wrapping it in parentheses it will taken to be a function statement and thus be a syntax error because there’s no name. Wrapping it in parentheses means it’ll be treated as an expression inside the parens and not as a statement so then name is optional. If you assign the result of the function expression to a variable or use it in some other way (like in my examples above) then you don’t need the parentheses.

So getting (at last) to the syntax mentioned in the question: once you have the parens and your function is treated as an expression you can use either of the two syntaxes you posted to invoke it. The first, invoke “outside” the parens means the first set of parens will evaluate as having the value of the expression inside, which happens to be a function that you can then invoke. The second, invoke “inside” means function expression will be invoked and then the surrounding parens will evaluate to whatever the function returns.

Either way, the return value of the function is thrown away because you don’t assign it to anything.

(Final note: a function expression can have a name so that the function can call itself recursively.)