Functions and Arguments

Hi Reggie,

This is a good page to learn about JS functions

Arguments are the real values you pass into a function when calling it. They replace the parameters in the function declaration. For example, here we declare a function called add with 2 parameters, a and b. We're saying that when the add function is called, it should expect to be passed 2 arguments that it will add together and return the sum:

function add(a, b){
    return a + b;
}

So if you wanted to add 5 and 3 together, they would be your arguments. You replace a and b with 5 and 3 when calling the function:

add(5, 3);

The function would look like this:

function add(5, 3){
return 5 + 3;
}

I hope that helps. Everything will take a fair amount of practice to get the hang of but JavaScript is a great language. Enjoy the journey!

Appreciate the feedback, i understand the concept abit better now! But now my question is, why would i need a function to run code like that in particular when i can just create a variable? for instance...

var a = 2
var b = 2

var sum = a + b;

is it so that when i put all of this in a function, it performs all of these task? I think i answered my own question while coming up with this example, lol but i just want to be sure! And is it always necessary to return a value to a function?

There are a number of reasons why you should use a function for something like this but here are a couple of the main reasons:

DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself) - you should never repeat the same piece of code if it can be avoided. The example add function is very simple and we're only calling it once but what if you had 50 sets of numbers to add together? You'd have to set variables a and b to new values and then do something with the new sum value 50 times which is wildly inefficient, tedious, and it's very easy to make mistakes. The function can be called any number of times to do the work for you. In addition, you can pass the result from one function to another and so on.

Scope - Variables declared inside a function only exist within that function. This allows us to avoid conflicts that arise from declaring multiple global variables with the same name, or accidentally changing the value of a variable in one place that breaks your code in another place. In the following functions a and b basically act as placeholders for the arguments passed to them when each function is called. They don't exist outside of the functions and the a and b in one function has no relation to the a and b in any other function.

function add(a, b){
    return a + b;
}
function subtract(a, b){
    return a - b;
}
function multiply(a, b){
    return a * b;
}
function divide(a, b){
    return a / b;
}

Often times you will return a value in a function but you certainly don't have to. For example, the following function doesn't return anything:

function greeting(name){
    alert("Hello " + name + ", it's nice to meet you!";
}

greeting("Reggie");

This will cause an alert box to pop up that reads: "Hello Reggie, it's nice to meet you!"

Thanks so much guys for the help! i have a clear understanding of functions now! and much more research to do :)