Why does calling a function in the Node.js REPL with )( work?

Question

Why is it possible to call function in JavaScript like this, tested with node.js:

~$ node
> function hi() { console.log(\"Hello, World!\"); };
undefined
&         


        

Answer 1

Seems to be a Node REPL bug, putting these two lines in a .js will cause syntax error.

function hi() { console.log("Hello, World!"); }
hi)(

Error:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token )
    at Module._compile (module.js:439:25)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
    at startup (node.js:119:16)
    at node.js:901:3

Issue submitted #6634.

Reproduced on v0.10.20.

---

v0.11.7 have this fixed.

$ nvm run 0.11.7
Running node v0.11.7
> function hi() { console.log("Hello, World!"); }
undefined
>  hi)(
SyntaxError: Unexpected token )
    at Object.exports.createScript (vm.js:44:10)
    at REPLServer.defaultEval (repl.js:117:23)
    at REPLServer.b [as eval] (domain.js:251:18)
    at Interface. (repl.js:277:12)
    at Interface.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:103:17)
    at Interface._onLine (readline.js:194:10)
    at Interface._line (readline.js:523:8)
    at Interface._ttyWrite (readline.js:798:14)
    at ReadStream.onkeypress (readline.js:98:10)
    at ReadStream.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:106:17)
>