I'm not a JavaScript person, but I believe this is part of RequireJS.
According to the docs, it appears to be defining functions with dependencies:
If the module has dependencies, the first argument should be an array
of dependency names, and the second argument should be a definition
function. The function will be called to define the module once all
dependencies have loaded. The function should return an object that
defines the module. The dependencies will be passed to the definition
function as function arguments, listed in the same order as the order
in the dependency array:
//my/shirt.js now has some dependencies, a cart and inventory
//module in the same directory as shirt.js
define(["./cart", "./inventory"], function(cart, inventory) {
//return an object to define the "my/shirt" module.
return {
color: "blue",
size: "large",
addToCart: function() {
inventory.decrement(this);
cart.add(this);
}
}
}
);
In this example, a my/shirt module is created. It depends on my/cart
and my/inventory. On disk, the files are structured like this:
- my/cart.js
- my/inventory.js
- my/shirt.js
The function call above specifies two arguments, "cart" and
"inventory". These are the modules represented by the "./cart" and
"./inventory" module names.
The function is not called until the my/cart and my/inventory modules
have been loaded, and the function receives the modules as the "cart"
and "inventory" arguments.
Modules that define globals are explicitly discouraged, so that
multiple versions of a module can exist in a page at a time (see
Advanced Usage). Also, the order of the function arguments should
match the order of the dependencies.
The return object from the function call defines the "my/shirt"
module. By defining modules in this way, "my/shirt" does not exist as
a global object.