Sum using jQuery each function without global variable

Question

I want to add some HTML elements that have the same class name.

So, the code will be like this with jQuery.

$(\".force\").each(function (){
    a +=          


        

Answer 1

In short, no.

Why does a have to be global? It doesn't have to be global.

function aFunc() {
    var a = 0;

    $(".force").each(function (){
        a += parseInt( $(this).html());
    });

    return a;
}

$("#total_forces").html(aFunc());

Which, can be simplified to:

$("#total_forces").html(function() {
    var a = 0;

    $(".force").each(function (){
        a += parseInt( $(this).html());
    });

    return a;
});

Here a is local to aFunc, and is just one of millions of examples of it not being in the global scope.