var self = this?

Question

Using instance methods as callbacks for event handlers changes the scope of this from "My instance" to "Whatever just called the callback". So my code looks like this

function MyObject() {
  this.doSomething = function() {
    ...
  }

  var self = this
  $('#foobar').bind('click', function(){
    self.doSomethng()
    // this.doSomething() would not work here
  })
}

It works, but is that the best way to do it? It looks strange to me.

Answer 1

If you are doing ES2015 or doing type script and ES5 then you can use arrow functions in your code and you don't face that error and this refers to your desired scope in your instance.

this.name = 'test'
myObject.doSomething(data => {
  console.log(this.name)  // this should print out 'test'
});

Answer 2

I haven't used jQuery, but in a library like Prototype you can bind functions to a specific scope. So with that in mind your code would look like this:

 $('#foobar').ready('click', this.doSomething.bind(this));

The bind method returns a new function that calls the original method with the scope you have specified.