What is the purpose of wrapping whole Javascript files in anonymous functions like “(function(){ … })()”?

Question

I have been reading a lot of Javascript lately and I have been noticing that the whole file is wrapped like the following in the .js files to be imported.

(f         


        

Answer 1

In addition to keeping the variables local, one very handy use is when writing a library using a global variable, you can give it a shorter variable name to use within the library. It's often used in writing jQuery plugins, since jQuery allows you to disable the $ variable pointing to jQuery, using jQuery.noConflict(). In case it is disabled, your code can still use $ and not break if you just do:

(function($) { ...code...})(jQuery);