Coffeescript/Javascript variable scope

Question

I'm not really sure why i do not have access to the @date (this.date) variable from the context of the anonymous function defined in C.f()

class C
  constructor: () ->
    @date = new Date()

  f: () ->
    $(document).keydown( (e) ->
      alert(@date)
    )

Could someone comment on that?

Christian C. Salvadó · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-15 06:38:09Z

9

This is happening because inside the keydown event handler, the this value will not refer to your object, it will refer to the DOM element.

For that purpose, you can use => (the fat arrow), that will bind the handler's this value to the parent this:

class C
  constructor: () ->
    @date = new Date()

  f: () ->
    $(document).keydown( (e) =>
      alert(@date)
    )

answered Aug 15, 2011 at 6:38

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