Require Consistent This (consistent-this)

It is often necessary to capture the current execution context in order to make it available subsequently. A prominent example of this are jQuery callbacks:

var that = this;
jQuery('li').click(function (event) {
    // here, "this" is the HTMLElement where the click event occurred
    that.setFoo(42);
});

There are many commonly used aliases for this such as that, self or me. It is desirable to ensure that whichever alias the team agrees upon is used consistently throughout the application.

Rule Details

This rule enforces two things about variables with the designated alias names for this:

Options

This rule has one or more string options:

Examples of incorrect code for this rule with the default "that" option:

/*eslint consistent-this: ["error", "that"]*/

var that = 42;

var self = this;

that = 42;

self = this;

Examples of correct code for this rule with the default "that" option:

/*eslint consistent-this: ["error", "that"]*/

var that = this;

var self = 42;

var self;

that = this;

foo.bar = this;

Examples of incorrect code for this rule with the default "that" option, if the variable is not initialized:

/*eslint consistent-this: ["error", "that"]*/

var that;
function f() {
    that = this;
}

Examples of correct code for this rule with the default "that" option, if the variable is not initialized:

/*eslint consistent-this: ["error", "that"]*/

var that;
that = this;

var foo, that;
foo = 42;
that = this;

When Not To Use It

If you need to capture nested context, consistent-this is going to be problematic. Code of that nature is usually difficult to read and maintain and you should consider refactoring it.

Version

This rule was introduced in ESLint 0.0.9.

Resources