Suppose I have an object like this:
var myObject = {};
myObject.myFunction = function() {
var name = <some expression>; // name should be myFunction
}
Can I get the name of the object property to which the anonymous function is assigned inside the anonymous function?
There is no generic way to do this. If you call the function such that this refers to the object, you can iterate over the properties of the object and compare the values:
myObject.myFunction = function() {
var name;
var func = arguments.callee;
for (var prop in this) {
if (this[prop] === func) {
name = prop;
break;
}
}
};
Note that the usage of arguments.callee is deprecated in favor of named function expressions. That is, you should do:
myObject.myFunction = function func() { // <- named function expression
var name;
for (var prop in this) {
if (this[prop] === func) {
name = prop;
break;
}
}
};
However, I wonder why you would need this. The property name should not have an impact on the inner workings of the function, and if it does, it seems to be badly designed IMO.
@Felix Kling's solution is awesome but it depends on the function expression being named. As he said if you ever need to know the name of the property to which an anonymous function is being assigned then your code design is bad. Nevertheless, if you want to write bad code then please write it like this instead:
function anonymous(method) {
return function () {
var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments), name = "";
for (var key in this) {
if (this[key] === method) {
name = key;
break;
}
}
return method.apply(this, args.concat(name));
};
}
Now you can create your anonymous functions like this:
var myObject = {};
myObject.myFunction = anonymous(function (name) {
// function body
});
Remember that name must be the last argument of your function.
myObject.myFunction.name == ''. But I thought OP wnated the function name, not the name of reference to that function.