As noted in this blog post you can set the scope of this
in an anonymous function in Javascript.
Is there a more elegant way of scoping this
in the anonymous function call on success
of the AJAX request (i.e. not using that
)?
For example:
var Foo = {
bar: function(id) {
var that = this;
$.ajax({
url: "www.somedomain.com/ajax_handler",
success: function(data) {
that._updateDiv(id, data);
}
});
},
_updateDiv: function(id, data) {
$(id).innerHTML = data;
}
};
var foo = new Foo;
foo.bar('mydiv');
Using call but still have to name the parent object scope that
.
success: function(data) {
(function() {
this._updateDiv(id, data);
}).call(that);
}
In jQuery 1.4 you have the $.proxy
method, you can simply write:
//...
bar: function(id) {
$.ajax({
url: "someurl",
success: $.proxy(this, '_updateDiv')
});
},
//...
$.proxy
takes an object, that will be used as the this
value and it can take either a string (a member of that object) or a function, and it will return a new function that will always have a particular scope.
Another alternative is the bind
function, now part of the ECMAScript Fifth Edition standard is the best:
//...
bar: function(id) {
$.ajax({
url: "someurl",
success: function(data) {
this._updateDiv(id, data);
}.bind(this)
});
},
//...
This function will be available natively soon, when JavaScript engines fully implement the ES5 standard, for now, you can use the following 8-line long implementation:
// The .bind method from Prototype.js
if (!Function.prototype.bind) { // check if native implementation available
Function.prototype.bind = function(){
var fn = this, args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments),
object = args.shift();
return function(){
return fn.apply(object,
args.concat(Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments)));
};
};
}
The $.ajax()
function provides a concise means of doing this already in the form of the context parameter:
$.ajax({
url: "www.somedomain.com/ajax_handler",
context: this,
success: function(data) {
this._updateDiv(id, data);
}
});
Though the techniques CMS outlines are more suitable for general use.