The 'this' keyword behaves differently in Nodejs and browser

Question

I have this piece of code :

var obj1;
var obj2;

function x() {
    obj1 = this;
}

function y() {
    obj2 = this;
}

x();
y();

console.log(obj1 === o         


        

Answer 1

The difference is pretty simple

In the node environment :

this refers to module.exports or exports for short. but inside a function this is refering to the entire Node.js package.

you can see it if you log to the console the following :

function test(){
    console.log('this inside a function = ',this);
}

console.log('this outside a function = ',this);
test();

Whereas in the browser environment this inside a function or outside a function is referring to the window object unless you are using the new keyword which is another story.

Execute the previous example in both Node.js and browser environments and you will understand.