Question

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Location of parenthesis for auto-executing anonymous JavaScript functions?

Sometimes I see:

(function() { ... }()); 

and sometimes I see:

(function() { ... })(); 

I see both forms with and without arguments. They both execute the anonymous function.

Is there a difference between the two forms? Are there any compelling reasons to use one form over the other?

Answer 1

There is no practical difference in those two forms, but from a grammatical point of view the difference between the two is that The Grouping Operator – the parentheses – will hold in the first example a CallExpression, that includes the FunctionExpression:

               CallExpression
                |         |
       FunctionExpression |
                |         |
                V         V
    (function() {       }());
    ^                      ^
    |--PrimaryExpression --|

In the second example, we have first a whole CallExpression, that holds the FunctionExpression:

          PrimaryExpression
                |
         FunctionExpression
                |
                V
    (function() {       })();
    ^                      ^
    |--  CallExpression  --|