Question

I have the following situation in JavaScript:

<a onclick="handleClick(this, {onSuccess : 'function() { alert(\'test\') }'});">Click</a>

The handleClick function receives the second argument as a object with a onSuccess property containing the function definition…

How do I call the onSuccess function (which is stored as string) -and- pass otherObject to that function? (jQuery solution also fine…)?

This is what I’ve tried so far…

function handleClick(element, options, otherObject) {
    options.onSuccess = 'function() {alert(\'test\')}';

    options.onSuccess(otherObject); //DOES NOT WORK
    eval(options.onSuccess)(otherObject); //DOES NOT WORK
}

Answer 1

You really don’t need to do this. Pass the function around as a string, i mean. JavaScript functions are first-class objects, and can be passed around directly:

<a onclick="handleClick(this, {onSuccess : function(obj) { alert(obj) }}, 'test');">
  Click
</a>

…

function handleClick(element, options, otherObject) {
    options.onSuccess(otherObject); // works...
}

But if you really want to do it your way, then cloudhead’s solution will do just fine.