Javascript Create A List Of Functions Dynamically

I have a piece of JavaScript code that I want to create a list of functions. All the functions will be put in a dictionary d. d['a'] will give me the function function() {console.l

Solution 1:

You need to give each instance of the function its own variable:

for(var l = a.length, i = 0; i < l; i++)
{
  (function (x) {
    d[a[x]] = function(){console.log(a[x])};
  })(i)
}

Solution 2:

They don't point to the same instance of function(){console.log(a[i])}, instead, you've created a bunch of functions that all use the same reference to i. The value that i points at changes as the for loop executes.

The other answers provided will work, but it involves generating twice as many functions as you need.

functionmakeLogFunction(whatToLog) {
    returnfunction() {
        console.log(whatToLog);
    }
}

var a = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz1234567890";
var d = {};
for(var l = a.length, i = 0; i < l; i++) {
    d[a[i]] = makeLogFunction(a[i]);
}

Here, I have a makeLogFunction that will return a new function that always prints whatToLog. The other answers will generate a new "version" of the makeLogFunction every time the loop executes. For very large sets of data, this is a waste of time and memory.

This approach has added advantages of clarity and reusability. If there's a significant amount of logic happening in your loop, encapsulating it in a named function allows future reviewers to get a sense of what's going on by the name you give to the function. You can also reuse the function in other parts of your application.