How do I reference the AJAX request object inside an anonymous function

Question

I use $.ajax() method from JQuery to do some POST requests, and inside its error: function(jqXHR, textStatus, errorThrown) { ... } callback, I want to implement a simple retry mechanism with timeout, eg

timeout = window.setTimeout(function() {
    $.ajax(myReqOptions);
}, 3000);

myReqOptions here needs to be the options object I define in $.ajax() to make this work. Is there a convenient way to reference this object other than setting a temp variable before calling the timeout, like this:

myReqOptions = this;
timeout = window.setTimeout(function() {
    $.ajax(myReqOptions);
}, 3000);

this here refers to the owner of the error callback, which is the object I define in $.ajax() .

Answer 1

The temp variable is fine. To shorten the call a littlebit, you can use the bind function method :

timeout = window.setTimeout($.ajax.bind($, this), 3000);

or, for compatibility with old browser (not using the ES5 shim), with $.proxy :

timeout = window.setTimeout($, "ajax", this), 3000);