Async function without await in Javascript

Question

I have two functions a and b that are asynchronous, the former without await and the later with await. They both log some

Answer 1

As other answers say/indicate: an async function just runs on spot until it encounters an await - if there is no await, it runs completely.

What may be worth adding that async unconditionally makes your result a Promise. So if you return something, there is a difference already and you simply can not get the result without returning to the JS engine first (similarly to event handling):

async function four(){
  console.log("  I am four");
  return 4;
}
console.log(1);
let result=four();
console.log(2,"It is not four:",result,"Is it a promise ?", result instanceof Promise);
result.then(function(x){console.log(x,"(from then)");});
console.log(3);