What does 'var that = this;' mean in JavaScript?

Question

In a JavaScript file I saw:

function Somefunction(){
   var that = this; 
   ... 
}

What is the purpose of declaring that and

Answer 1

From Crockford

By convention, we make a private that variable. This is used to make the object available to the private methods. This is a workaround for an error in the ECMAScript Language Specification which causes this to be set incorrectly for inner functions.

JS Fiddle

function usesThis(name) {
    this.myName = name;

    function returnMe() {
        return this;        //scope is lost because of the inner function
    }

    return {
        returnMe : returnMe
    }
}

function usesThat(name) {
    var that = this;
    this.myName = name;

    function returnMe() {
        return that;            //scope is baked in with 'that' to the "class"
    }

    return {
        returnMe : returnMe
    }
}

var usesthat = new usesThat('Dave');
var usesthis = new usesThis('John');
alert("UsesThat thinks it's called " + usesthat.returnMe().myName + '\r\n' +
      "UsesThis thinks it's called " + usesthis.returnMe().myName);

This alerts...

UsesThat thinks it's called Dave

UsesThis thinks it's called undefined