Question

I’ve create a namespace like the one below.

var Constants = {
    Foo: 'bar',
    SomeVar: {
       key: 'value'
    }
};

What I want to do is:

var Constants = {
    Foo: 'bar',
    SomeVar: {
       key: Constants.Foo + 'value' // Notice the Constants.Foo
    }
};

What I want to do is be able to use the value of Constants.Foo to create a value for SomeVar. However this throws an error in Firebug.

So I’m wondering, how do I access the value of Foo inside the Constants namespace; and also, I’ve been reading a few articles on encapsulation in Javascript (like this one), is it possible to access value of Foo without having to do Constants.Foo? Perhaps some sort of way to preserve a reference to the namespace’s this keyword and then I can do something like thisParent.Foo.

Thanks!

---

EDIT:

This is the error I’m getting by the way:

TypeError: Constants is undefined

Answer 1

That’s not possible. An object literal doesn’t have a name until you assign it to something, and by then, it’s too late. Object literals aren’t functions, either, so there’s no contextual keyword you could use; this would still be whatever it was in the containing function. Adding the property afterwards is the only way.

var Constants = {
    Foo: 'bar',
    SomeVar: {}
};

Constants.SomeVar.key = Constants.Foo + 'value';

And no, a namespace is not a thing in JavaScript. That is an object. Nothing more.