What underlies this JavaScript idiom: var self = this?

Question

I saw the following in the source for WebKit HTML 5 SQL Storage Notes Demo:

function Note() {
  var self = this;

  var note = document.createElement(\'d         


        

Answer 1

It should also be noted there is an alternative Proxy pattern for maintaining a reference to the original this in a callback if you dislike the var self = this idiom.

As a function can be called with a given context by using function.apply or function.call, you can write a wrapper that returns a function that calls your function with apply or call using the given context. See jQuery's proxy function for an implementation of this pattern. Here is an example of using it:

var wrappedFunc = $.proxy(this.myFunc, this);

wrappedFunc can then be called and will have your version of this as the context.