few years back people always define function like this way
1) function foo() {}
now i have noticed people define function like this way
2) var foo= function () {}
3) foo: function() {}
4) var GaugeBar = GaugeBar || {};
GaugeBar.generate = function (percentage) {}
so anyone JavaScript expert would tell me why people follow different approach for defining function? each signature has any special significance ?
when we should follow which one?
looking for good explanation. thanks
I think that there is some confusion in your question - the only valid approach to define a function is 1) and 2). The other two are just different uses of functions in objects.
I personally like to define named functions (function myFunc () {}) because if my program crashes the function names will appear in stack traces. However, there are situations where I use anonymous functions if those functions are not part of a public API or if they are used only once in my program.
Option 3) is basically a function that gets assigned to an object:
var myObject =
{ func: function () {}
, func2: function () {}
}
Option 4) is merely a way how to ensure that a variable contains an object and after that adding some functions to that object.
In practical terms, there is no difference whether you give your functions a name or you use anonymous functions (except for the stack traces and for differences already described in this SO question) and I believe it depends on the programmer's preferred code style. I would love if everyone named their publicly accessible functions as it makes debugging easier, but that's up to each developer to decide.
