What the difference between returning or not? [duplicate]

Question

Possible Duplicates:
What's the effect of adding 'return false' to an onclick event?
When and why to 'return false' in javascript?

I mean, if I have this function :

 function openMask() {
     alert("enter");
 }

is it better call it as :

 <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="openMask()">Link</a>

or :

 <a href="javascript:void(0);" onclick="openMask(); return false;">Link</a>

??? I'm really curious about it! Never understood the difference...

Answer 1

In a DOM event handler (such as onclick), returning true means "continue with the event", and returning false means "don't".

In this case, it's not entirely meaningful because your href is already javascript:void(0) (which won't do anything).

Note, though, that javascript: URIs should really be avoided, and that this isn't very helpful for non-Javascript users, so you should provide a fallback page, and then the return false becomes more meaningful:

JS:

function openMask() {
   alert("enter");
   return false; 
}

HTML:

<a href="fallbackpage.html" onclick="return openMask();">Link</a>