javascript: how do I handover an argument to a private function within an object?

Question

how do I define a function inside an object definition where I create an object from a string by extracting information from the string?

The sting would look like this:

var theString = "some textsome more texteven more text";

I then create an object

someObject = new Reportlet(theString);

from this code:

* function Reportlet(myString){

var extractData (separator) = function(){
     var dummy;
     var a;
     var txt;
     if(myString.indexOf(separator) > -1){
        dummy = myString.split(separator);
        dummy = dummy[1];
        a = dummy.indexOf("<");
        if(a > 0){
          txt = dummy.substr(0,a);
        }
        else{
          txt = dummy;
        }
      }
      else{
          txt = "";
      }
      return(txt);  
}
this.abbrevText = extractData("<A>");
this.optText = extractData("<S>");
this.fullText = extractData("<L>");
this.impression = extractData("<I>");
this.keywords = extractData("<X>");

} *

The problem is, how do I handover an argument "separator" to the private function "extractData" within an object?

Thanks Holx

Answer 1

You need to do this:

function Reportlet(myString){

var extractData = function(separator) { // just do this
     var dummy;
     var a;
     var txt;
     if(myString.indexOf(separator) > -1){
        dummy = myString.split(separator);
        dummy = dummy[1];
        a = dummy.indexOf("<");
        if(a > 0){
          txt = dummy.substr(0,a);
        }
        else{
          txt = dummy;
        }
      }
      else{
          txt = "";
      }
      return(txt);  
}
this.abbrevText = extractData("<A>");
this.optText = extractData("<S>");
this.fullText = extractData("<L>");
this.impression = extractData("<I>");
this.keywords = extractData("<X>");
}

But remember that the "this" reference inside "extractData" is different from "Reportlet", in other words inside "extractData" the "this" reference is NOT the "Reportlet" instance.