So far we have discussed using anonymous functions as callbacks. Let’s see another application of an anonymous function—calling this function right after it was defined. Here’s an example:
(function(){
alert('boo');
})();The syntax may look a little scary at first, but it’s actually easy—you simply place an anonymous function definition inside parentheses followed by another set of parentheses. The second set basically says “execute now” and is also the place to put any parameters that your anonymous function might accept.
(function(name){
alert('Hello ' + name + '!');
})('dude')One good reason for using self-invoking anonymous functions is to have some work done without creating global variables. A drawback, of course, is that you cannot execute the same function twice (unless you put it inside a loop or another function). This makes the anonymous self-invoking functions best suited for one-off or initialization tasks.