Is it typical for a Javascript function to return a value of undefined intentionally? [closed]

Question

I'm new to Javascript and am wondering if intentionally returning a value of undefined from a function is a common practice.

For example, should a divide() function be implemented like this:

var divide1 = function (x, y) {
    if (y === 0) {
        return undefined;
    }

    return x/y;
};

or like this?

var divide2 = function (x, y) {
    if (y === 0) {
        throw new Error("Can't divide by 0");
    }

    return x/y;
};

I assume that returning undefined is typically reserved for functions with no return values (equivalent of void in Java or C#).

Answer 1

It's the default:

function foo() {}
console.log(foo());

But it turned out it's not a good choice. Code which can run into an exceptional state shouldn't do so silently. A lot of errors in JavaScript slip through the cracks because the code doesn't break violently when something goes wrong.

So unless you're an exceptional good developer and you can guarantee that everyone who will ever touch this code is on the same level and you never make mistakes, you can return undefined. I, myself, would throw an exception.

Turns out I'm not a good-enough developer :-)