Book Image

Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Second Edition

By : Loiane Groner
Book Image

Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Second Edition

By: Loiane Groner

Overview of this book

This book begins by covering basics of the JavaScript language and introducing ECMAScript 7, before gradually moving on to the current implementations of ECMAScript 6. You will gain an in-depth knowledge of how hash tables and set data structure functions, as well as how trees and hash maps can be used to search files in a HD or represent a database. This book is an accessible route deeper into JavaScript. Graphs being one of the most complex data structures you’ll encounter, we’ll also give you a better understanding of why and how graphs are largely used in GPS navigation systems in social networks. Toward the end of the book, you’ll discover how all the theories presented by this book can be applied in real-world solutions while working on your own computer networks and Facebook searches.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Learning JavaScript Data Structures and Algorithms - Second Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface

Functions


Functions are very important when working with JavaScript. We will also use functions a lot in our examples.

The following code demonstrates the basic syntax of a function. It does not have arguments or the return statement:

function sayHello() { 
  console.log('Hello!'); 
} 

To call this code, we simply use the following call:

sayHello(); 

We can also pass arguments to a function. Arguments are variables with which a function is supposed to do something. The following code demonstrates how to use arguments with functions:

function output(text) { 
  console.log(text); 
} 

To use this function, we can use the following code:

output('Hello!'); 

You can use as many arguments as you like, as follows:

output('Hello!', 'Other text'); 

In this case, only the first argument is used by the function and the second one is ignored.

A function can also return a value, as follows:

function sum(num1, num2) { 
  return num1 + num2; 
} 

This function calculates the sum of two given numbers and returns its result. We can use it as follows:

var result = sum(1,2); 
output(result);