Accessing variables from other functions without using global variables

javascript global-variables
John Richardson picture John Richardson · Jan 2, 2009 · Viewed 238k times · Source

I've heard from a variety of places that global variables are inherently nasty and evil, but when doing some non-object oriented Javascript, I can't see how to avoid them. Say I have a function which generates a number using a complex algorithm using random numbers and stuff, but I need to keep using that particular number in some other function which is a callback or something and so can't be part of the same function.

If the originally generated number is a local variable, it won't be accessible from, there. If the functions were object methods, I could make the number a property but they're not and it seems somewhat overcomplicated to change the whole program structure to do this. Is a global variable really so bad?

Answer

Triptych picture Triptych · Jan 2, 2009

I think your best bet here may be to define a single global-scoped variable, and dumping your variables there:

var MyApp = {}; // Globally scoped object

function foo(){
    MyApp.color = 'green';
}

function bar(){
    alert(MyApp.color); // Alerts 'green'
}

No one should yell at you for doing something like the above.

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