Question

This is my code:

var shuffle = function(x) {
    var deck = [];
    deck.push(x);

    return deck;
};

var Placemat = function() {
    var card1 = deck.shift();
    var card2 = deck.shift();
}

By returning deck in shuffle() like this, can I use it in Placemat()? If not, how can I do it?

Answer 1

Yes you could. But anytime you call .shuffle() you would overwrite that array, or more precisely, create a new instance. So if you want to keep that reference you could go like

var shuffle = (function() {
    var deck = [];

    return function(x) {
        deck.push(x);

        return deck;
    };
}());

Now .shuffle() closes over the deck by returning another function. So it could look like

var Placemat = function() {
    var myDeck = shuffle(5);

    shuffle(10);
    shuffle(15);

    var card1 = deck.shift();
    var card2 = deck.shift();
}

Even if that is probably not the greatest way to go. But I guess I don’t even know what exactly you want to achieve there.