Many people get confused by this. The value this depends on one of 4 methods of invocation.
However, functional invocation and method-invocation cause most of the confusion.
If a function is a member of an object, this is the object itself.
obj.someFunction(); //method invocation
If a function is called without context this is the global object (in 'strict mode' this is undefined.)
someFunction(); //functional invocation
The confusion occurs when a function is called within an object, but not as a member of the object as in anObject.testWithHelper(..);
var testForThis = function(isThis, message) {
//this can be confusing
if(this === isThis)
console.log("this is " + message);
else
console.log("this is NOT " + message);
};
//functional invocation
testForThis(this, "global"); //this is global
var anObject = {
test: testForThis, //I am a method
testWithHelper: function(isThis, message) {
//functional invocation
testForThis(isThis, message + " from helper");
}
};
//method invocation
anObject.test(anObject, "anObject"); //this is anObject
//method invocation followed by functional invocation
anObject.testWithHelper(anObject, "an object"); //this is NOT anObject from helper
Here is my JSFIDDLE
If you would like c to return a, you can use closure:
var a = {
b: function () {
var that = this;
var c = function () {
return that;
};
return c();
}
};
Or avoid this all together:
var getNewA = function() {
var newA = {};
newA.b = function() {
var c = function() {
return newA;
};
return c();
};
return newA;
};
var newA = getNewA();