Question

I want to define several methods from an array of method names like so:

var methodNames = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz'],
    randomObject = {}, method;

for( var i = methodNames.length - 1; i >= 0; --i ){
  method = methodNames[ i ];

  randomObject[ method ] = function(){
    console.log( method );
  }
}

So that I end up with an object randomObject, which has all the methods defined doing the exact same thing. The problem is, every method logs ‘foo’ instead of the name of the method being called. How can I make the variable method persist when the method is called?

Answer 1

I can’t tell if this is the best way to use a closure, but I think this is working…

UPDATE:

http://jsfiddle.net/ZDrCK/1/

var methodNames = ['foo', 'bar', 'baz'],
    randomObject = {},
    method;

for (var i = methodNames.length - 1; i >= 0; --i) {
    method = methodNames[i];

    randomObject[method] = (function(met){
        return function () {
            console.log(met);
        }
    })(method);
}

randomObject.baz();
randomObject.bar();
randomObject.foo();