Question

I currntly have a nameless function in a javascript ajax-call:

(This code has been cut down to the essentials, there might be some errors)

function call(name){
    var type = services[name].type


    $.oajax({
        success: function(data) {
            fbposts=data.data
                if (type === "grupp"){
                    var postid=fbposts[fbpost].id.split("_");
                    return "https://www.facebook.com/groups/"+postid[0]+"/permalink/"+postid[1]+'/'
                }
                else if (fbposts[fbpost].actions){
                    return fbposts[fbpost].actions[0].link;
                }
            }
        }       
    })
};

I want to insead use

success: successfunction,

and the reference the function like this:

function success(data) {
            fbposts=data.data
                if (type === "grupp"){
                    var postid=fbposts[fbpost].id.split("_");
                    return "https://www.facebook.com/groups/"+postid[0]+"/permalink/"+postid[1]+'/'
                }
                else if (fbposts[fbpost].actions){
                    return fbposts[fbpost].actions[0].link;
                }
            }
        }       
    })

At this point, the type-variable is no longer defined. Can I somehow solve this?

Answer 1

One approach that could work is to make use of the context parameter on $.ajax — for example:

function successFunction(data) {
    fbposts=data.data;
    if (type === "grupp"){
        var postid=fbposts[fbpost].id.split("_");
        return "https://www.facebook.com/groups/"+postid[0]+"/permalink/"+postid[1]+'/'
    }
    else if (fbposts[fbpost].actions){
        return fbposts[fbpost].actions[0].link;
    }
}

function call(name){
    var type = services[name].type;
    $.oajax({
        success: successFunction,
        context: { type: type }
    );
}

Using context causes this inside your success function to point to whatever you passed in for context. So in the above example, when within successFunction we read

if (type ...)

this would mean that type refers to this.type, which is the same value of type that we saved into context from within call.