JavaScript : Closure Program

A closure is an inner function that has access to the outer (enclosing) function’s variables—scope chain. The closure has three scope chains: it has access to its own scope (variables defined between its curly brackets), it has access to the outer function’s variables, and it has access to the global variables.

var add = (function () {
var counter = 0;
return function () {return counter += 1;}
})();

function myFunction(){
document.getElementById(“demo”).innerHTML = add();
}

Example Explained

The variable add is assigned the return value of a self-invoking function.

The self-invoking function only runs once. It sets the counter to zero (0), and returns a function expression.

This way add becomes a function. The “wonderful” part is that it can access the counter in the parent scope.

This is called a JavaScript closure. It makes it possible for a function to have “private” variables.

The counter is protected by the scope of the anonymous function, and can only be changed using the add function.

A closure is a function having access to the parent scope, even after the parent function has closed.