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JavaScript Function Returning Undefined When Called with Callback

πŸ‘€ Views: 39 πŸ’¬ Answers: 1 πŸ“… Created: 2025-08-30
javascript node.js asynchronous JavaScript

I'm integrating two systems and This might be a silly question, but I'm sure I'm missing something obvious here, but I'm working with an scenario in my JavaScript code where a function intended to return a value is returning `undefined` when called with a callback function... I'm using Node.js version 16.0.0, and my code involves asynchronous operations. Here’s a simplified version of what I have: ```javascript function fetchData(callback) { setTimeout(() => { const data = 'Hello, World!'; callback(data); }, 1000); } function processData() { const result = fetchData((data) => { console.log(data); }); console.log(result); } processData(); ``` I expected the `console.log(result)` statement to log the fetched data, but it logs `undefined`. I understand that the `fetchData` function is using a callback to handle asynchronous behavior, but I'm unsure how to modify my approach to capture the returned value properly. I tried returning the value from `fetchData` directly, but since it's asynchronous, that resulted in another `undefined`. How can I refactor this to get the desired output without running into the same scenario? Is there a recommended best practice for handling such cases in Node.js? Any insights would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger application I'm building. Am I missing something obvious? I'm working on a service that needs to handle this. Thanks, I really appreciate it! Thanks for your help in advance!