Question

Given an Array Literal inside a JavaScript Object, accessing its own object’s properties does not seem to work:

 var closure =  {

         myPic : document.getElementById('pic1'),
         picArray: [this.myPic]
 }    

 alert(closure.picArray[0]); // alerts [undefined]

Whereas declaring an Array Item by accessing an other JavaScript Object seem to work

 ​var closure1 = {
 ​    
 ​     myPic : document.getElementById('pic1')
 ​}
 ​    
 ​var closure2 =  {
 ​  
 ​        picArray: [closure1.myPic]
 ​}    
 ​    
 ​alert(closure2.picArray[0]); // alerts [object HTMLDivElement]

Example:
http://jsfiddle.net/5pmDG/

Answer 1

The this value will not work like that, it refers to a value determined by the actual execution context, not to your object literal.

If you declare a function member of your object for example, you could get the desired result:

var closure =  {
  myPic: document.getElementById('pic1'),
  getPicArray: function () {
    return [this.myPic];
  }
};
//...
closure.getPicArray();

Since the this value, inside the getPicArray function, will refer to your closure object.

See this answer to another question, where I explain the behavior of the this keyword.

Edit: In response to your comment, in the example that I’ve provided, the getPicArray method will generate a new Array object each time it is invoked, and since you are wanting to store the array and make changes to it, I would recommend you something like this, construct your object in two steps:

var closure =  {
  myPic: document.getElementById('pic1')
};
closure.picArray = [closure.myPic];

Then you can modify the closure.picArray member without problems.