Find out instance variable name out of itself

Question

I've created a JavaScript Class just as following:

function MyClass() {
    this.myProp = '';
}
MyClass.prototype.myTestFunction = function() {
    alert('test');
}

Now, I instantiate this class.

var myTestInstance = new MyClass();
myTestInstance.myTestFunction();

This outputs an alert with 'test'.

Now I want to have the variable name 'myTestInstance' into the function 'myTestFunction()' without having to pass it as a parameter.

Is it somehow possible to find out the variable name of the instance from inside the called function?

Thank you for your help!

EDIT: Just to add information why I would need this: Every instance I create in my real project is a special HTML table. In the header fields are sort-buttons for every column. Therefore I added dynamically a link-element with href='javascript:myTableInstance.sort()'. To print this dynamically IN the instance, I needed the variable name.

Would there be another, better solution?

fdreger · Accepted Answer · 2012-06-06 09:33:56Z

5

No, it does not make sense in any way. First of all, instance is not tied to a single variable (it might be referenced by many variables, it could be referenced by none - perhaps as a member of some array) - so the question "what is the name of the variable that stores the instance" is unanswerable. Secondly, the scope of myTestFunction and myTestInstance could be very different. In a usual case myTestFunction would not "see" the scope that has myTestInstance defined - so knowing the name of the variable would not help.

You should just use "this" inside myTestFunction.

answered Jun 6, 2012 at 9:33

fdreger

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