How to explain callbacks in plain english? How are they different from calling one function from another function?

Question

How to explain callbacks in plain English? How are they different from calling one function from another function taking some context from the calling function? How can thei

Answer 1

A callback is a function that will be called by a second function. This second function doesn't know in advance what function it will call. So the identity of the callback function is stored somewhere, or passed to the second function as a parameter. This "identity," depending on the programming language, might be the address of the callback, or some other sort of pointer, or it might be the name of the function. The principal is the same, we store or pass some information that unambiguously identifies the function.

When the time comes, the second function can call the callback, supplying parameters depending on the circumstances at that moment. It might even choose the callback from a set of possible callbacks. The programming language must provide some kind of syntax to allow the second function to call the callback, knowing its "identity."

This mechanism has a great many possible uses. With callbacks, the designer of a function can let it be customized by having it call whatever callbacks are provided. For example, a sorting function might take a callback as a parameter, and this callback might be a function for comparing two elements to decide which one comes first.

By the way, depending on the programming language, the word "function" in the above discussion might be replaced by "block," "closure," "lambda," etc.