Question

I do some debugging and I found this statement:

$(this)[widget.widgetName](widget.attributes);

where widget.widgetName = chart

What is the meaning of this statement in jquery?

In the stack I saw that jquery_ui calls _createwidget of jquery-ui

Why does createwidget get called ?

Regards,
Yossi

Answer 1

$(this)[widget.widgetName] uses square bracket notation to refer to the property whose value is the value of widget.widgetName. For comparisons between square backet and “dot notation” see the MDC article.

As you said widget.widgetName is chart, it’s refering to:

$(this).chart

and then the (widget.attributes); is simply invoking the function and passing widget.attributes as the first and only parameter:

$(this).chart(widget.attributes);

As for “Why does createwidget get called?” The chart() function must call it, either implicitly (through another function) or explicitly.