Question

Is there a way to create private global variables in JavaScript? I have tried looking around, and I keep bumping into talk of constructors – which don’t seem too global.

Thanks

Answer 1

Not sure what your use case is. I’ll assume you have a js script file containing some functions and variables and you want to expose some of those globally, but keep the rest private to your script file. You can achieve this with a closure. Basically you create a function that you execute immediately. Inside the function you place your original code. You then export the functions you need into the global scope.

// Define a function, evaluate it inside of parenthesis
// and execute immediately.
(function(export) {

   var myPrivateVariable = 10;

   function myPrivateFunction(param) {
     return param + myPrivateVariable;
   }

   export.myGlobalFunction = function(someNumber) {
      return myPrivateFunction(someNumber);
   };
})(this);  // The *this* keyword points to *window* which
           // is *the* global scope (global object) in a web browser
           // Here it is a parameter - the *export* variable inside the function.

// This is executed in the global scope
myGlobalFunction(2);  // yields 12 (i.e. 2 + 10)
myPrivateVariable;    // Error, doesn't exist in the global scope
myPrivateFunction(2)  // Error, doesn't exist in the global scope