JavaScript Encapsulation / JQuery

Question

I am trying to figure out how to keep my page variables in my application from being defined globally. I've come up with a few methods but am wondering if there is a general standard approach people use.

I've got my plugin design pattern down using this approach: http://www.virgentech.com/blog/2009/10/building-object-oriented-jquery-plugin.html. But I'm just not sure how to handle my page level encapsulation.

Answer 1

Usually, it is achieved like this:

(function(){

    var myLocal = "I'm local!";

    window.myGlobal = "I'm global!";

})();

Answer 2

Vincent's got the most watertight approach (wrap everything in a function).

The other thing people do is to define a global object that more or less works as a namespace for your package.

window.ChrisPkg = { global1: ['a','b','c'], global2: 42 globalfunc: function () { alert('hello world!'); } }

ChrisPkg.extraGlobal = 'foo';