[thelist] thelist Digest, Vol 63, Issue 12

[Howard Jess]

Blake wrote:

 > <mwarden at gmail.com> wrote:
 > > > On Wed, May 14, 2008 at 12:37 AM, Blake <haswell00 at gmail.com> wrote:
 > > >  >                 link[i].setAttribute('onclick', 'swapStories(' + i +
 > > >
 > > >  You can not set onclick using setAttribute. onclick is a javascript
 > > >  property. Try using the "link[i].onclick =" syntax
 >
 > Thanks, but I can't think of a way to achieve the functionality I want
 > using methods like this. I tried some other solutions first and they
 > all had problems which made them un-workable. See below:
 >
 > for(var i = 0; i < link.length; i++) {
 >   link[i].onclick = swapStories; // This has the problem that I can't
 > pass the argument through so it's useless for me
 > }
 >
 > for(var i = 0; i < link.length; i++) {
 >   link[i].onclick = function() {
 >     swapStories(i); // This has the problem that the function isn't run
 > until the element is clicked, and since I'm passing a counter the
 > value is useless by the time the event triggers
 >   }
 > }
 >
 > for(var i = 0; i < link.length; i++) {
 >   link[i].onclick = function(i) {
 >     swapStories(i); // This seems to pass the MouseEvent through, which
 > is useless for me. I just want the counter.
 >   }
 > }

You probably want a closure here:

   for (var i=0; i < link.length; i++) {
     link[i].onclick = (function(n) {
                         return function() {swapStories(n)}
                       })(i);
   }

That is, the onclick property is set to the result of the anonymous
function ("(function(n)..."); that result is a function itself,
closed over the value of "i".

[Untested, of course.]

--

hj