Question

If I compile this coffeescript to javascript using coffeescript compiler on my local machine:

window.App =
  Models: {}
  Views: {}
  Collections: {}
  Routers: {}
  init: ->
      Backbone.history.start()

I will end up with this generated javascript output:

// Generated by CoffeeScript 1.3.3
(function() {

  window.App = {
    Models: {},
    Views: {},
    Collections: {},
    Routers: {}
  };

  ({
    init: function() {
      var spotsList;
      spotsList = new App.Views.SpotsList();
      return Backbone.history.start();
    }
  });

}).call(this);

But, if I compile the same code in the online coffeescript to js http://js2coffee.org/ site I will get this result:

window.App = {
  Models: {},
  Views: {},
  Collections: {},
  Routers: {},
  init: function() {
    return Backbone.history.start();
  }
};

The latter seems more expected. I think this may be causing some problems in my project, but can’t tell. I know that when I call App.init() my javascript console says it doesn’t exist. Thanks for the help!

FIXED!

As @Rob W pointed out below, I had some tabs in my coffeescript code. Later I figured out it was because I had a clean install of TextMate and didn’t have it set to “Soft Tabs (spaces)”.

Answer 1

There are two differences between your “local” and “online” result.

1. Local version is wrapped in a closure.
2. Local version’s init method is dangling outside App.

The extra closure is the default behaviour of the coffee compiler. Use the --bare flag to not get rid of the wrapper:

coffee --bare --compile app.coffee

There’s no reason for 2 to occur. Make sure that the spaces matches: If you’ve got four preceeding spaces before Models, etc, and three before init, then the output will be “wrong”.