Are there legitimate uses for JavaScript's “with” statement?

Question

Alan Storm\'s comments in response to my answer regarding the with statement got me thinking. I\'ve seldom found a reason to use this particular language feature, and had ne

Answer 1

I think that the usefulness of with can be dependent on how well your code is written. For example, if you're writing code that appears like this:

var sHeader = object.data.header.toString();
var sContent = object.data.content.toString();
var sFooter = object.data.footer.toString();

then you could argue that with will improve the readability of the code by doing this:

var sHeader = null, sContent = null, sFooter = null;
with(object.data) {
    sHeader = header.toString();
    sContent = content.toString();
    sFooter = content.toString();
}

Conversely, it could be argued that you're violating the Law of Demeter, but, then again, maybe not. I digress =).

Above all else, know that Douglas Crockford recommends not using with. I urge you to check out his blog post regarding with and its alternatives here.