Question

I’d like something equivalent to this code, except I don’t want my_func to be called when my_var is defined. I want to call my_var() later on in the code with the original argument (‘called!’) preserved.

function my_func(first_arg) {
alert(first_arg);
};
var my_var = my_func('called!');

How?

Answer 1

You might be looking for something like Function.prototype.bind, which allows you to bind a function with arguments to a particular context. Basically, it allows you to do this:

function myFunc(firstArg, secondArg) {
    alert(firstArg + secondArg);
};

var myVar = myFunc.bind(null, 'called!');

myVar(' - from myVar!');
// result is alert with -> "called! - from myVar"

It’s not in older browsers, but the link above has a compatibility implementation to make it work for this particular scenario.