How to use Arrow Functions in JavaScript

EcmaScript 6 introduced a new syntax for defining functions, called arrow functions.

Arrow functions are a more concise way of writing functions, and they have some interesting features that make them more flexible than regular functions.

In this post, we'll learn about arrow functions in JavaScript, and how to use them.

How to define arrow functions

As mentioned before, arrow functions are a newer way of defining functions in JavaScript.

First, let's look at the traditional way of defining a function:

	function add(a, b) {
    return a + b;
}

Now, let's look at the same function defined as an arrow function:

	const add = (a, b) => {
    return a + b;
};

In essence, the word function is replaced with an arrow => to signify that this is a function.

A key difference is that the first example is defining a function, while the second example is defining a variable that is assigned a function.

This is important to note, because arrow functions are not hoisted like regular functions.

An interesting feature of arrow functions is that they can be defined without the curly braces, if the function only has one statement.

	const add = (a, b) => a + b;

You can use it like any other function:

	const add = (a, b) => a + b;

const sum = add(1, 2);

console.log(sum);

	3

Conclusion

In this post, we learned about arrow functions in JavaScript.

Use arrow functions if you're looking for a more concise way of defining functions and don't need hoisting.

Thanks for reading!

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