Global in ECMAScript 262

The global object

For more information see http://msdn.microsoft.com/library/en-us/script56/html/js56jsobjglobal.asp.

Instance Properties

name	type	description
Infinity	Infinity	The static value "Infinity"
NaN	NaN	Not a Number
undefined	undefined	The static value "undefined"

Instance Methods

name	returns	description
eval(str)	(none)	Evaluate the supplied string as ECMAScript code.
isFinite(num)	Boolean	Returns `false` if the supplied number is `NaN`, `Infinity` or `-Infinity`; returns `true` otherwise.
isNaN(num)	Boolean	Returns `true` if the supplied number is `NaN`, `false` otherwise.
parseFloat(string)	Number	Attempt to convert a string into a number.
parseInt(string,[radix])	Number	Attempt to convert a string into an integer number, using the specified base.

Description

In web browsers, the Global object has a properties named 'window' and 'self' which refer to the Global object. The default 'window' object hence has all the properties of the Global object.

To create your own reference to the Global object in a UA which doesn't have such a convenience property, simply assign this to a new global variable outside the scope of any function, object, or event handler. For example:

<script type="text/ecmacript"><![CDATA[
    var Global = this;
]]></script>

If you're already trapped inside of a non-global scope, you can create and run a private function (which runs in global scope) to return the global scope:

var global = (function(){ return this })();