FreeGameDev

I am following the excellent book Foundation Game Design with HTML5 and Javascript.

I have a piece of code, which works but i'm not sure why.



function destroyAlien(alien)
{
//Change the alien's state and update the object
alien.state = alien.EXPLODED;

alien.update();

//Remove the alien after 1 second
setTimeout(removeAlien, 1000);

function removeAlien()
{
removeObject(alien, aliens);
removeObject(alien, sprites);
}


As you can see it is a function which uses setTimout to call another function. It only calls removeAlien function when it is inside the main function. If I move callAlien function out of the main function it does not work. I am puzzled as to why this is.

Can any sage member here tell me why this is?
Thanks in advance
Crock

Did you fixed the code? Because your post is from some days ago.

Well, do you have this code in any code repository? Because I don't know what it is the reason to fail when the function is out.

Hi midtroop. Because i created the variable alien inside the function it is a temporary variable. It could not access the alien variable in the main program. Making a variable within the function ties the variable's scope to within the function. If i understand it correctly.

thanks for your reply and interest.