I've been struggling for awhile with callbacks in general. I'm trying to go back to the basics to try to understand conceptually and this is what I understand so far (yeah, basic).
function RandHash (callback) {
ds_hash = Math.floor((Math.random()*10000)+1);
callback();
}
function CompiledHash (){
console.log(ds_hash);
}
var ds_hash;
RandHash(Compiled Hash);
Will yield the random number.
However, I'm lost as to how to get the "ds_hash" variable returned from the callback.
Seems this would work:
var ds_hash;
ds_hash = RandHash(Compiled Hash);
It doesn't. If I try to return the value something like:
function CompiledHash (){
return ds_hash;
}
It doesn't do anything.
Please help me with this. Seems I spend 90% of my time with node in callback debugging. I've built some decent applications but everything has been handled through the async library because of this mental block I have.
Thanks.
The first error you've made is that RandHash hasn't returned anything. There's no return statement present in the function, so var anything = RandHash(alsoAnything) will always result in anything being undefined.
Functions can be used just as variables can, and passed round as arguments to functions. This is a powerful feature of javascript and something that you'll need to grok to use callbacks. Think of a function as a defined action, and you're just passing that action around.
Also, callbacks should be used to deal with the completion of a process. So the idea is, you know what is meant to happen after process A, and what it is meant to generate, so you can give process A a callback which will be called once A has terminated. Now the scenario here isn't appropriate for a callback situation. It would be much easier for you to do...
function RandHash () {
return Math.floor((Math.random()*10000)+1);
}
And then get your hash by just calling this function, like so...
var hash = RandHash();
You also want to be aware of javascripts variable scoping, as you're missing the var keyword when referencing ds_hash in the RandHash function which means the assignment defaults to global scope. This is probably what is responsible for confusing you, as your assignment of ds_hash in RandHash will be global and therefore available in CompiledHash, meaning some functions will still be able to access the ds_hash value despite this not being the correct, or proper way to do this.
function randHash (callback) {
var hash = /* do hash calculation */
callback(hash);
}
function compileHash (hash) {
/* do something using the hash variable passed to this function */
}
randHash(compileHash); // pass the compileHash function as the callback
You should pass your variables as arguments to the callback. That will deal with your scoping issues hopefully.
Also, small note, functions in javascript should typically be lowercase if they aren't going to be used with the new statement (ie, a javascript class).
Collected from the Internet
Please contact [email protected] to delete if infringement.
Comments