What does "self" mean in javascript?

Question

I read here that "self Refers to the current window or form".

Self does not seem to refer to the current form in this case:

<form><input type="text" onkeyup="alert(self.foo.value)" name="foo"></form>

However in this case it works (referring to the window):

<form><input type="text" onkeyup="alert(self.document.forms[0].foo.value)" name="foo"></form>

So when would you use the self DOM property over just window?

Answer 1

For all windows, the self and window properties of a window object are synonyms for the current window, and you can optionally use them to refer to the current window. For example, you can close the current window by calling the close method of either window or self. You can use these properties to make your code more readable or to disambiguate the property reference self.status from a form called status.