Javascript, pass type as parameter in functions
The funny thing about Javascript is that there really are no classes. The equivalent of a class in Javascript is just a special kind of function. Actually, forget about the "special" in the previous sentence (just wanted to soften the blow). Any function can "act as a class" and be instantiated with the new
operator (although it is really only useful when that function assigns stuff to this
so the generated object gains public methods and attributes).
And functions in Javascript are first-class citizens. Functions can be assigned to variables and functions can be passed as arguments to other functions. This makes it perfectly legal to pass a function to another function and then have that other function instantiate it with new
.
Yes, this is indeed a very strange concept to wrap a head around which is used to class-oriented programming languages. But it becomes surprisingly intuitive once you understand it.
So what happens in the code you posted in the question is this:
- When
require
is executed, it calles an anonymous function passing aclassfunction to it - the anonymous function assigns that
classfunction to a local variableMap
- the anonymous function then creates an instance of that
classfunction. - the instance is assigned to the global variable
map
To be able to use new, then Map must be a type
No. For new
to work, Map
must be a function.
Functions are first class objects in JavaScript and can be treated like any other piece of data (assigned to variables, passed as function arguments, etc).
function One() {
this.foo = 1;
}
function myCallingThing(arg) {
alert(new arg().foo + 1);
}
var Two = One;
var instance = new Two;
alert(instance.foo);
myCallingThing(Two);
This is not unique to JavaScript.
#!/usr/bin/perl
use strict;
use warnings;
use v5.10;
sub example {
say "Hello";
}
sub callme {
my $var = shift;
$var->();
}
callme(\&example);
or
#!/usr/bin/python
def example():
print "Hello\n"
def callme(arg):
arg();
callme(example)
By defining function you can create something like class
function Apple (type) {
this.type = type;
this.color = "red";
this.getInfo = getAppleInfo;
}
Then you can create new instance of your function/class
var apple = new Apple('lobo');
So your Map
parameter is a function that define objects