How do Anonymous functions work

Question

I am trying to understand anonymous functions but having a hard time. The function below is an anonymous function but I'm not sure how it would get called or used. I have looked all over the web but have not gotten a good explanation of how/when to use it. Please help.

    var area1 = (function() {
    var width = 5;
    var height = 2;

    return width*height;
}());

Thanks for any clarification that can be provided.

The function is defined and called afterwards. That's because there's `()` after the function's body `{...}`. I'm not sure what else is there to explain. — freakish, Jul 27 '14 at 14:56
Here's another helpful link that I found: http://esbueno.noahstokes.com/post/77292606977/self-executing-anonymous-functions-or-how-to-write — Anderson Green, Jul 27 '14 at 14:57

score 0 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 27 '14 at 14:57

That is an immediately executed function expression. The function is defined, then executed right away (by the () after it).

The code has the same effect as:

var area1 = 10;

You can't use the function after that statement, because it only exists as an intermediate value, and the variable area1 is assigned the result of executing the function.

How do Anonymous functions work

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