CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptanonymous-function
Welsh King
Welsh King

Reputation: 3238

Get the name of the anonymous variable that contains the function

I have the functions

function getCallingFunctionName() {
    alert(arguments.callee.caller.name.toString();
}

var bob = function() {
    ...
    getCallingFunctionName();
}

When the code is run the value alerted is an empty string is returned. I need to return 

 bob

I CANNOT change the original functions (im dealing with a large project with thousands of functions etc.

var bob = function bob() {
    ...
    getCallingFunctionName();
}

Any one got any other ideas ? Its not critical to have but basically to help with debugging.

Upvotes: 3

Views: 250

Answers (2)

basilikum
basilikum

Reputation: 10536

Here is a way, that requires a little extra effort/code, but maybe it suits you:

var cache = {};

var bob = function () {
    getCallingFunctionName();
}

function getCallingFunctionName() {
    alert(cache[arguments.callee.caller.toString()]);
}

cache[bob.toString()] = "bob";

bob(); //bob

So you are basically caching the function string representation (which is the complete function body) and using it as a key for the actual function name. Afterwards you can access the name, using again only func.toString(). Of course, this requires that you don't have two functions who have the exact same body.

Upvotes: 0

dfsq
dfsq

Reputation: 193301

What if you try to do something like this:

function getCallingFunctionName() {
    try {
        throw new Error();
    }
    catch(e) {
        console.log(e);
    }
}

var bob = function() {
    getCallingFunctionName();
}

It will give you something like this:

Error
    at getCallingFunctionName (<anonymous>:4:15)
    at bob (<anonymous>:12:5)
    at <anonymous>:2:1
    at Object.InjectedScript._evaluateOn (<anonymous>:581:39)
    at Object.InjectedScript._evaluateAndWrap (<anonymous>:540:52)
    at Object.InjectedScript.evaluate (<anonymous>:459:21)

which you can use for your purpose, i.e. to extract function name. The only sad thing is that IE supports Error.stack starting from version 10.

Upvotes: 2

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