Question

In this simple example I have a function that returns a text string. When I try to output the result of the function it just outputs the code of the function. Any ideas?

http://jsfiddle.net/VQz73/

Answer 1

document.write(hello());

not

document.write(hello);

The former is outputting the result of the function call. The latter is outputting a reference to the function itself. You weren’t invoking it.

As a sidenote, document.write is very old school and has almost no use these days. If you’re new to JavaScript I would suggest looking into other means of output such as DOM scripting, e.g.

var p = document.createElement('p');
p.textContent = hello();
document.body.appendChild(p);