Question

While watching Learning to Love JavaScript, I got hung up on why this 2nd version wouldn’t work. It just returns ‘function’. Is a closure not allowed to have a variable directly assigned to it?

function getCtr() {
    var i = 0;
    return function() {
        console.log(++i);
    }
}
var ctr = getCtr();
ctr();
ctr();
ctr();
/* console
1
2
3
*/
/*--------------------------------------
 *   This doesn't work
 */
var ctr = function() {
    var i = 0;
    return function() {
        console.log(++i);
    }
}
ctr();
ctr();
ctr();
/*   console
 *   => [Function]
 */

Video Link http://youtu.be/seX7jYI96GE?t=11m12s

Answer 1

It prints that because the function does return a function.

Try

ctr()();

The two forms of function declaration you used have almost exactly the same effect. Both simply create a function and bind it to a symbol. All you really changed in the second version is the name involved (“ctr” instead of “getCtr”).

That is, if your test had been like the first setup:

var actualCtr = ctr();

actualCtr();
actualCtr();
actualCtr();

you’ll see that it really is the same.