how to access outer parent from inner object javascript

Question

Is there a way to access the Parent's attribute from inner() without its reference being passed explicitly to it (as I have to do in this code) ?

Here is my javascript code :

function Parent() {
return {
    outer: {
        parent: null,  //I want to avoid this
        name: 'outer',
        inner: function() {
            console.log(this.name);
            console.log(this.parent.name);   //how to access parent.name ?
        }
    },

    name: 'parent'

};
}

$(document).ready(function() {

var p = new Parent();
p.outer.parent = p;  //I want to avoid this
p.outer.inner();

});

possible duplicate of Access parent's parent from javascript object — epascarello
– epascarello, Commented Apr 2, 2014 at 12:35

RobG · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-02 12:39:56Z

2

Is there a way to access the Parent's attribute from inner() without its reference being passed explicitly to it (as I have to do in this code) ?

No. There is no structure to objects other than name/value pairs, an object has no knowledge of things that reference it. Relationships are created entirely by assigning values to properties and work only in one direction: from a reference to an object.

The object literal:

var a = {foo: {bar:'bar'}};

is identical to:

var a = {};
a.foo = {bar:'bar'};

which is identical to:

var a = new Object();
var b = new Object();
b['bar'] = 'bar';
a['foo'] = b;

and any number of other similar formulations.

answered Apr 2, 2014 at 12:39

RobG

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Comments

Radek Pech · Accepted Answer · 2014-04-02 12:53:11Z

-1

You can ommit the p assignment by this:

function Parent() {
return {
    outer: {
        parent: this, //keep reference
        name: 'outer',
        inner: function() {
            console.log(this.name);
            console.log(this.parent.name);   //how to access parent.name ?
        }
    },

    name: 'parent'

};
}

$(document).ready(function() {

    var p = new Parent();
    p.outer.inner();

});

But I guess it's not what you need.

answered Apr 2, 2014 at 12:53

Radek Pech

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1 Comment

user13500 Over a year ago

No, that won't give access to outer's parent, and certainly not parent.name of the p object inside the inner() function.

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