Reference Error when dynamically creating variables with eval() in Angular

Question

I am trying to create dynamically generated variables based on another variable, such as:

var limit = 2;
$scope.blank_item = [];
$scope.create_vars = function(limit){
  for(i=0; i<limit; i++){
    eval('var item' + i) = $scope.blank_item;
  };
};

And this should give me 3 new variables like below:

var item0 = [];
var item1 = [];
var item2 = [];

However, when I try to do this, I get the following error message:

ReferenceError: Invalid left-hand side in assignment

Is there something fundamentally wrong with my logic?

Answer 1

This has nothing to do with Angular. The value passed to eval() has to be one or more statements, not part of a statement. And you certainly can't pass part of a statement to eval() and then assign a value to it.

Even you could do that, it would just be creating temporary variables that disappeared as soon as your function finished executing.

Ditch the eval() and use an array:

var limit = 2;
var items = [];
$scope.blank_item = [];
$scope.create_vars = function(limit){
  for(i=0; i<limit; i++){
    items[i] = [];
  };
};