No sure what step 2 is asking here? Please help.

Doug,

For task two, they want you to:

1) Create a function called returnValue that takes one argument and then simply returns it.

2) Create a variable called "echo" outside of the function.

3) Assign as the value of that variable the result of calling the returnValue function.

Let's break it down into smaller steps and look at what's going on as we go!

First, we have our returnValue function:

function returnValue( myArg ) {
    return myArg;
}

This function isn't very useful, but that's beside the point. This function will simply take in whatever argument you pass it, and then return it. You can think of that as meaning that, when you call this function, it is going to equal whatever the value it returns is set to. In this particular case, it returns the argument you pass into it, so if you pass "waffles" into it, then the result of calling this function will be the string "waffles."

Now, we are told to create a variable "echo" outside of the function.

function returnValue( myArg ) {
    return myArg;
}

var echo;

Here, we have created a new variable in the global scope, and we've called it "echo". It is currently undefined, so we need to fix that by assigning it a value. The value that the task wants it to have assigned to it is whatever value is returned from the "returnValue" function, which we just learned is going to be whatever the argument is that you pass into it. That means, that if we do something like the following:

function returnValue( myArg ) {
    return myArg;
}

var echo = returnValue( "The Empire Strikes Back" );

...then "myArg" inside your function is equal to "The Empire Strikes Back," which the function will then return (i.e. "be equal to", in a sense), and since we're assigning that function call to be the value of our echo variable, then the value that gets stored into our "echo" variable is going to be "The Empire Strikes Back"! Again, this kind of illustrates how useless that function is, since we could just as easily assign the value of "The Empire Strikes Back" to the echo variable directly in this case (since the function is doing nothing with that value), but still. This challenge helps to show you how functions and return values work.

Hopefully this has helped to make the process a little more manageable and sensible. Happy coding!

Erik