Advantages of using inner functions(javascript)

Question

this might not be a very specific question but I was wondering what are the advantages of using an inner function? I've recently started reading on closures (javascript) and they always refer to inner functions.

var pet = function(name) {   
  var getName = function() {
    return name;                          
  }
  return getName;           
}
myPet = pet('Vivie');
myPet();

Why would we not want to seperate the getName function and introduce a 'name' parameter so that we could call it independantly?

var pet = function(name){
  return getName();
}
function getName(name){
  return name;
}

Thank you, I am quite new to javascript

Answer 1

Try this article. Simple guide to understand closure in JavaScript

I copied here a part of the code explained in the article. Run this code snippet to see the behavior of the inner function.

 <script> function outer() { var b = 10; var c = 100; function inner() { var a = 20; console.log("a= " + a + " b= " + b); a++; b++; } return inner; } var X = outer(); // outer() invoked the first time var Y = outer(); // outer() invoked the second time //end of outer() function executions X(); // X() invoked the first time X(); // X() invoked the second time X(); // X() invoked the third time Y(); // Y() invoked the first time </script>