object.js/README.md

object.js

object.js provides a set of tools for constructing and maintaining object constrictors and for managing their inheritance relations.

This is an elternative to the ES6 class syntax in JavaScript and provides several advantages:

• simple way to define normal and class methods, properties and attributes,
• uniform and minimalistic definition syntax based on basic JavaScript object syntax no special cases or special syntax,
• transparantly based on JavaScript's prototypical inheritance model,
• more granular instance construction (a-la Python's .__new__(..) and .__init__(..) methods)
• less restrictive:
  • new is optional
  • all input components are reusable

Disadvantages compared to the class syntax:

• no sytactic sugar
• a slightly more complicated super call method

Usage

var object = require('ig-object')

Create a basic constructor...

// NOTE: new is optional here...
var A = new object.Constructor('A', {})

In JavaScript constructor B inherits from constructor A iff B.prototypes is prototype of A.prototype. So to implement inheritance we simply need to link the prototypes of two constructors via .__proto__, Object.create(..) or other means.

// NOTE: we could simply use A() or new A() here but that would call
//      the active constructors if they are defined which might not be
//      desirable at definition time...
var B = object.Constructor('B', {__proto__: A.prototype})
var C = object.Constructor('C', Object.create(B.prototype))

var c = C() // or new C()

c instanceof C // -> true
c instanceof B // -> true
c instanceof A // -> true

var Base = object.Constructor('Base', {
    get prop(){
        return 123 },
    method: function(){
        console.log('Base.method()') },

    // initializer...
    __init__: function(){
        this.base_attribute = 321
    },
})

var Item = object.Constructor('Item', {
    // inherit from Base...
    __proto__: Base.prototype,

    __init__: function(){
        // call the "super" method...
        object.parent(this.__init__, this).call(this)
        this.item_attribute = 333
    },
})

Components

parent(<method>, <this>)
parent(<method>, <name>, <this>)
    -> <parent-method>

mixin(<root>, <object>, ...)
    -> <object>

mixinFlat(<root>, <object>, ...)
    -> <object>

makeConstructor(<name>, <prototype>)
makeConstructor(<name>, <class-prototype>, <prototype>)
    -> <constructor>

License

BSD 3-Clause License

Copyright (c) 2019, Alex A. Naanou,
All rights reserved.