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Editorial Team
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Asked: 2026-05-25T12:58:34+00:00

In JavaScript you could consider the relationship between two objects to be like a

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In JavaScript you could consider the relationship between two objects to be like a “container” and a “member”. For example:

var c1 = {m:1};

function C() {this.m = 1;} var c2 = new C();

function C() {var m = 1;} var c3 = new C();

In each of these cases there is a relationship between the c object and the m object. You could say that in first case that m is a static member of c1. In the second case m is an instance member of c2. And in the third case m is an inner member of c3.

I suspect these terms are not technically correct in the case of the JavaScript Language, but in my experience, they are in common usage and are understood by most JavaScript developers. So my question is: what single word would you use to describe all these relationships? For example, would you say the “attachment” of m to c is “static”; or the “membership” of m to c is “instance”; etc.? The ????? of m to c is “inner”? If you see what I mean.

The use case is that I am documenting a JavaScript library and I’ve chosen to organise the documented objects into containers and then, under that, into members of that container. Then I’d like to organise the members based on their “relationship” to their container: { inner, instance, or static }. Is there a word that describes that relationship?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    I’d say, in the first case (this.m), m is a property of the object which is publicly accessible. Strictly speaking, all properties you can define are “public” because JavaScript does not have the concept of visibility.

    In the second, m is just a variable local to the constructor function. What you name it depends on what you are doing with it. If you define other, public, functions (methods) in the constructor, then you could call m a “private property“, as it is not accessible from the outside, but accessible by the methods. Although this is technically not correct, I think most people would understand what you mean. I would also mention explicitly (in a comment) that you use closures to simulate these “private properties” with local variables.

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