Return not in function

Question

Firebug is reporting a "return not in function" error with no location (well, line 1 of nothing). How can I track down the source of this error?

return not in function
[Break on this error] return(0)
javascript:return... (line 1)

I'm running FireBug 1.05 on FF 2.0.0.20 on Ubuntu.

I found a solution that works (for this configuration):

  var link = document.createElement('a');
  link.href='/';
  if (childSummary.more) {
    link.onclick = capture(function(id) { follow(id); }, childSummary.id);
  } else {
    link.onclick = capture(function(id) { show(id); }, childSummary.id);
  }
  link.appendChild(document.createTextNode(name));
  div.appendChild(link);

  [...]

 function capture(fn, val) {
   return function() { fn(val); return false; };
 }

The code was in a loop in which the id was changing, necessitating the capture function.

Formerly the href was 'javascript: return 0' and the capture function wasn't returning false directly, instead using the result of the fn, and there was a path when it was returning the equivalent of true. The href was being evaluated causing the error.

Defining href as '#' or '' caused all the links to appear as already visited. Not defining href at all caused there to be no link highlighting. This seemed simplest.

Answer 1

I'm going to hazard a guess that this means you have an extra closing brace, or a missing opening brace.

Is your codebase prohibitively large to do a spot check around each of your return functions? Do you have an IDE that highlights matching braces for you?

Answer 2

I think the "javascript:return ..." is telling. I believe you're trying to return a value in the href attribute of an anchor, as below:

<a href="javascript: return false">Test</a>

The reason Firebug isn't telling you the location is because it's not in any JavaScript, but is rather in a one-liner in the DOM.

Answer 3

Javascript returns an error because the return statement is not inside a function. A possible cause for this is incorrect function definition, such as:

myFunc() { some code; return; }

where the correct code definition is:

function myFunc() { some code; return; }