Errors in finally clause ?

Question

It appears that errors in a "finally" clause go completely undetected and unremarked, except that
they change the return value to undefined
function foo1(a) { return(a); }
function foo2(a) { try { return(a); } finally { "no effect" ; }}
function foo3(a) { try { return(a); } finally { b; "no effect"; }}     // "b" is a simulated typo
function foo4(a) { try { b; return(a); } finally { "no effect"; }}     // "b" is a simulated typo
It seems to me that foo3 ought to throw an error, or lacking that, return a.
It does neither. It returns undefined.
foo4 throws an error as I would expect.

Answer 1

Wouldn't return force the function to exit immediately and ignore any code after it? I would suggest $.write() for the debugging and I would expect foo3 to return a as well. I will try it tomorrow, unless someone gives an explanation before.