Difference between window[] and eval() - Javascript
Another point that has not been addressed is that eval
will resolve the variable reference using the caller variable environment, for example:
var foo = "global";
(function () {
var foo = "local";
alert(eval("foo")); // alerts "local"
alert(window["foo"]); // alerts "global"
})();
So as you can see, is not completely equivalent.
If you simply want to reference a global variable, I would recommend you to use the window[prop]
approach and avoid surprises.
eval() interprets arbitrary javascript statements, whereas with window you are accessing a property of the window object.
In your example, you seem to be using a property name in both eval() and window[]. As the global scope in a browser is the same as the window object's scope they will evaluate to the same thing.
You can think of your eval("v"+e)
statement as being equivalent to eval("window['v'" + e +" ]")
.
Both return a global variable's value. The difference is that if the global variable is undefined, you will get an error on executing eval() whereas window['variableName'] will return undefined(not an error) because accessing an undefined property is not an error but accessing an undefined variable is an error.