Gulp.js task, return on src?

Question

I'm new to gulp and have been looking through example set-ups. Some people have the following structure:

gulp.task("XXXX", function() {
    gulp.src("....

Other people have this:

gulp.task("XXXX", function() {
   return gulp.src("....

I'm wondering what difference the return on the src makes??

Answer 1

You return to indicate that the task is async. gulp.src() returns a stream, so it's async.

Without it the task system wouldn't know when it finished. Read the docs.