[Javascript] looping through nodeList

[paul at novitskisoftware.com (Paul Novitski)]

At 02:15 PM 10/18/2005, Anthony Ettinger wrote:
>How should I call function names then?
>
>If I run window.onload=Foo; it works,
>
>if I have:
>
>window.onload=Bar;
>
>function Bar()
>{
>     Foo;
>}
>
>Foo does not get called. It only works in the 2nd
>instance if I call it as Foo();
>
>What's going on here?


To reiterate Mike's point:
_____________________________

If your javascript statement is:
         Foo;
then you are invoking the TEXT of the function Foo().  This is like writing:
         "funky";
It doesn't do anything, it just sits there.  It's just an expression 
with no verb.
_____________________________

If you state:
         Foo();
then you are executing the function Foo().  In this case, the 
browser's javascript interpreter performs the logic of the Foo() function
_____________________________

The reason we generally write:
         window.onload = Foo;
and not:
         window.onload = Foo();
is that we want window.onload to equal the TEXT of function Foo(); 
when the page finishes loading, the function text contained in 
window.onload will execute.  It's an exact copy of your function 
Foo() and will perform identically.
_____________________________


Rarely will you ever want to write:

         window.onload = Foo();

This would make sense only if function Foo() returned javscript code, 
something like this:

         window.onload = Foo();

         function Foo()
         {
            return("alert('hello world')");
         }

window.onload would then contain the script:

         alert('hello world')

which would execute when the page finished loading.


Clear as mud?

Paul