How to function call using 'this' inside forEach loop

Question

In the following object, I have a problem using the 'this' reference:

function SampleObject(){     this.addObject = function(object){...}     ...     // more code here     ...     this.addNewObjects= function(arr){         arr.forEach( function (obj) {             this.addObject(new Obj(obj.prop1, obj.prop2));         });     } } 

I'm assuming the context is changing and that 'this' refers the iterated 'obj', and not 'SampleObject'. I've solved the problem using a normal for loop however, i'm curuois to why this is not working, and would like to know if there is another way to do this.

Answer 1

You can store this in variable:

var self = this; this.addNewObjects = function(arr){     arr.forEach(function(obj) {         self.addObject(new Obj(obj.prop1, obj.prop2));     }); } 

or use bind:

this.addNewObjects = function(arr) {     arr.forEach(function(obj) {         this.addObject(new Obj(obj.prop1, obj.prop2));     }.bind(this)); } 

And side note, without those this will be window object not obj. This is always object that was created using new keyword or window object if it's normal function. In strict mode this will be undefined in this case.

UPDATE: and with ES6 you can use arrow function:

this.addNewObjects = function(arr) {     arr.forEach((obj) => {         this.addObject(new Obj(obj.prop1, obj.prop2));     }); } 

arrow functions don't have their own this and they get it from outer scope.

UPDATE2: from @viery365 comment you can use this as second argument to forEach and it will make context for the function:

this.addNewObjects = function(arr) {     arr.forEach(function(obj) {         this.addObject(new Obj(obj.prop1, obj.prop2));     }, this); } 

You can read this on MDN forEach page

Answer 2

const array1 = [   {name : "john", age: 20}, {name : "sarah", age: 70}   ];  array1.forEach(element => this.print(element));  print = (data) => {   console.log(data.name); } // expected output: "john" // expected output: "sarah"

There is better way to do this

array.forEach(obj => this.functionName(params));