How to bind function arguments without binding this?

Question

In Javascript, how can I bind arguments to a function without binding the this parameter?

For example:

//Example function.
var c = funct         


        

Answer 1

One more tiny implementation just for fun:

function bindWithoutThis(cb) {
    var bindArgs = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1);

    return function () {
        var internalArgs = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 0);
        var args = Array.prototype.concat(bindArgs, internalArgs);
        return cb.apply(this, args);
    };
}

How to use:

function onWriteEnd(evt) {}
var myPersonalWriteEnd = bindWithoutThis(onWriteEnd, "some", "data");

Answer 2

Jquery use case:

instead:

for(var i = 0;i<3;i++){
    $('<input>').appendTo('body').click(function(i){
        $(this).val(i); // wont work, because 'this' becomes 'i'
    }.bind(i));
}

use this:

for(var i = 0;i<3;i++){
    $('<input>').appendTo('body').click(function(e){
        var i = this;
        $(e.originalEvent.target).val(i);
    }.bind(i));
}

Answer 3

You can do this, but best to avoid thinking of it as "binding" since that is the term used for setting the "this" value. Perhaps think of it as "wrapping" the arguments into a function?

What you do is create a function that has the desired arguments built into it via closures:

var withWrappedArguments = function(arg1, arg2)
    {
        return function() { ... do your stuff with arg1 and arg2 ... };
    }(actualArg1Value, actualArg2Value);

Hope I got the syntax right there. What it does is create a function called withWrappedArguments() (to be pedantic it is an anonymous function assigned to the variable) that you can call any time any where and will always act with actualArg1Value and actualArg2Value, and anything else you want to put in there. You can also have it accept further arguments at the time of the call if you want. The secret is the parentheses after the final closing brace. These cause the outer function to be immediately executed, with the passed values, and to generate the inner function that can be called later. The passed values are then frozen at the time the function is generated.

This is effectively what bind does, but this way it is explicit that the wrapped arguments are simply closures on local variables, and there is no need to change the behaviour of this.

Answer 4

It's a bit hard to tell exactly what you ultimately want to do because the example is sort of arbitrary, but you may want to look into partials (or currying): http://jsbin.com/ifoqoj/1/edit

Function.prototype.partial = function(){
  var fn = this, args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
  return function(){
    var arg = 0;
    for ( var i = 0; i < args.length && arg < arguments.length; i++ )
      if ( args[i] === undefined )
        args[i] = arguments[arg++];
    return fn.apply(this, args);
  };
};

var c = function(a, b, c, callback) {
  console.log( a, b, c, callback )
};

var b = c.partial(1, 2, 3, undefined);

b(function(){})

Link to John Resig's article: http://ejohn.org/blog/partial-functions-in-javascript/

Answer 5

jQuery 1.9 brought exactly that feature with the proxy function.

As of jQuery 1.9, when the context is null or undefined the proxied function will be called with the same this object as the proxy was called with. This allows $.proxy() to be used to partially apply the arguments of a function without changing the context.

Example:

$.proxy(this.myFunction, 
        undefined /* leaving the context empty */, 
        [precededArg1, precededArg2]);

Answer 6

In the native bind method the this value in the result function is lost. However, you can easily recode the common shim not to use an argument for the context:

Function.prototype.arg = function() {
    if (typeof this !== "function")
        throw new TypeError("Function.prototype.arg needs to be called on a function");
    var slice = Array.prototype.slice,
        args = slice.call(arguments), 
        fn = this, 
        partial = function() {
            return fn.apply(this, args.concat(slice.call(arguments)));
//                          ^^^^
        };
    partial.prototype = Object.create(this.prototype);
    return partial;
};