Kevin Powell - Community•3w ago

this keyword used on properties and methods when creating a new object in JavaScript

Hello guys, I just read that the purpose of the this keyword is to refer to the current object being executed... so writing something like this.name = name means that on that object particular being refered, we want to assign the name to it. This makes sense when we want to use a property but why should methods also have the this keyword?

7 Replies

Jochem•3w ago

Cause methods and properties aren't that different. They're both references in Javascript

glutonium•3w ago

methods also can refer to the property of the current instance in them , like for example

public printName() {
    console.log(this.name);
}

public printName() {
    console.log(this.name);
}

so ig maybe that's also why u need to refer to the methods with this as well

Faker•3w ago

yeah but the method won't be the same for all the instances ? so why explicitly make use of the this keyword

Jochem•3w ago

because it's a part of the instance still

Faker•3w ago

yeah I see, so every time I need to define a new method, I should always use the this keyword ? If ever I forgot to do so, will I get any sort of error ?

Jochem•3w ago

no, you'd usually define a method in the main scope of the class, where you'd just write them like this

class MyClass {
  someMethod() {
    //...
  }
}

class MyClass {
  someMethod() {
    //...
  }
}

or this in an object

const obj = {
  a() {
    //...
  }
}

const obj = {
  a() {
    //...
  }
}

you'd refer to them inside the object/instance by using this.someMethod or this.a afaik though

Faker•3w ago

yeah I see, thanks !

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this keyword used on properties and methods when creating a new object in JavaScript