How to reference internally in javascript objects

Question

I am new to this and can't figure this out. I have this simplified piece of code:

var StpTable = function () {
 function setupPager() {
 ...
 if(i<StpTable.a) {
 ...
 }
 ...
 };
 return {
 "a": 10,
 "init": function() {
 setupPager();
 }
 }
}();

How do I from with the setupPager() function reference the variable a without having to use the variable name StpTable. Tried with this.a but the scope is off.

Any suggestions?

• Bergi: What's wrong with using StpTable?
• Thomas K. Nielsen: That's a good question. It works! It is not pretty - in my eyes - using the external name in an internal reference. But maybe it's my head that's twisted. This is new to me in javascript :-)

Answer 1

Assign the object to a local variable before you return it and use that.

var StpTable = function () {
 function setupPager() {
 ...
 if(i<obj.a) {
 ...
 }
 ...
 };
 var obj = {
 "a": 10,
 "init": function() {
 setupPager();
 }
 };
 return obj;
}();

Or simply assign the function as property of the object:

var StpTable = function () {
 function setupPager() {
 ...
 if(i<this.a) {
 ...
 }
 ...
 };
 return {
 "a": 10,
 "init": setupPager,
 };
}();

Then this.a will work, assuming the function is called with StpTable.init();.

• Bergi: This. See also Javascript: Object Literal reference in own key's function instead of 'this' for a comparison of the two approaches.
• Bergi: Alternative 3: pass this or this.a as a parameter to setupPager
• Thomas K. Nielsen: The obj idea is good. It works like a charm. I like it. My init function does several other things in my real code so the 2nd alternative becomes a little more complicated. The 3rd is also not so easy in the real code. I have several of these vars that I want to reference from within the object, so the first one is clean and simple to me. Thx.

Answer 2

Yes, a could be a local variable

var StpTable = function () {
 var a = 10;
 function setupPager() {
 ...
 if(i<a) {
 ...
 }
 ...
 };
 return {
 "a": a,
 "init": function() {
 setupPager();
 }
 }
}();