Stop Using arguments.callee

Please, it’s no longer needed. It’s also deprecated and uncool. I still see authors use it to recursively call an anonymous function when really, they should be using a named function.

E.g. instead of this (from MDC):

function makeFactorialFunc() {
   alert('making a factorial function!');
   return function(x) {
      if (x <= 1)
         return 1;
      return x * arguments.callee(x - 1);
   };
}

var result = makeFactorialFunc()(5); // returns 120 (5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1)

do this:

function makeFactorialFunc() {
   alert('making a factorial function!');
   return function innerFactorialFunc(x) {
      if (x <= 1)
         return 1;
      return x * innerFactorialFunc(x - 1);
   };
}

var result = makeFactorialFunc()(5); // returns 120 (5 * 4 * 3 * 2 * 1)

We give the anonymous function a name (innerFactorialFunc in this case) so it can be referenced in its function body. Makes sense.

arguments.callee is a remnant of a time when named functions couldn’t be used this way. Please, let it die.

Edit: take heed, however, JScript has a number of bugs with named functions

June 21 2009