What is a best practice for ensuring “this” context in Javascript?

Question

Here\'s a sample of a simple Javascript class with a public and private method (fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/gY4mh/).

function Example() {
    function privateFun         


        

Answer 1

I would say assigning self to this is a common technique:

function Example() {
    var self = this;

    function privateFunction() {
        console.log(self);
    }

    self.publicFunction = function() {
        privateFunction();
    };
}

Using apply (as others have suggested) also works, though it's a bit more complex in my opinion.

It might be beyond the scope of this question, but I would also recommend considering a different approach to JavaScript where you actually don't use the this keyword at all. A former colleague of mine at ThoughtWorks, Pete Hodgson, wrote a really helpful article, Class-less JavaScript, explaining one way to do this.