Question

The application I am looking at loads an external javascript file which looks like this:

$(function () {

    // Don't allow browser caching of forms
    $.ajaxSetup({ cache: false });

    var dialogs = {};

    var getValidationSummaryErrors = function ($form) {
        // We verify if we created it beforehand
        ...
        ...
        }
        return errorSummary;
    };

I understand that the file setups up some variables and also declares a function called getValidationSummaryErrors.

What I don’t understand is why is this all within

$(function () {  ... }

What’s the purpose of this? Can I not just declare the variable and things inside the flat file without the “$(function () { }” ?

Answer 1

$(function() { ... }); is just short for $(document).ready(function() { ... });, which ensures that the code is not executed until the DOM is ready, otherwise some code that affects the DOM may not work properly.

See http://api.jquery.com/ready/