Question

I use the $.get() function to process a lot of files and I need to find out the filename I am calling with from within its callback function. is there a way to do this?

while (allFilesToImport.length > 0) {
    var fileToOperate = allFilesToImport.shift();
    var jqxhr = $.get(path + '/' + fileToOperate,
        function(data, textStatus, jqXHR){ // here I need the fileToOperate variable!});

Answer 1

You can access fileToOperate and mypathToTheFile inside your function – that’s one of the reasons why closures are awesome.

Here’s an example with a loop in case that’s what you have:

var filenames = ['a', 'b', 'c'];
for(var i = 0; i < filenames.length; i++) {
    (function(filename) {
        $.get('whatever/'+filename, function(data) {
            // here you can use filename and it will point to the correct value
        });
    })(filenames[i]);
}

You could also use $.each() to iterate over the array:

$.each(filenames, function(i, filename) {
    $.get('whatever/'+filename, function(data) {
        // here you can use filename and it will point to the correct value
    });
});