Question

When I click the anchor, I find that date is not defined. How should I make sure the parameters are in the scope of the self-calling function that I pass to onclick?

var date = today; // today is well-defined at this point.

html += '<a onclick="(function(obj, myDate) { \
        return function() { \
           obj.render(myDate.setMonth(myDate.getMonth() - 1));  \
        };  \
      })(this, date);">&lt;</a>'

Edit: Is this HTML valid?

today is well-defined. This snippet of code lives inside this function:

Calendar.prototype.render = function(date) {

}

Answer 1

When an event is raised, the only context it has is the window context.

you have to set up a global var in order for it to be available within the event callback code when using on<event> attributes.