Question

I have a question about this code:

getContent: (index) ->
  content = @get('content')
  element = content.objectAt(index)
  if element?
    [type, clientId] = element
    store = @get('store')

    if clientId?
      store.findByClientId(type, clientId)

I am specifically talking about this line:

[type, clientId] = element

I do not understand how I can assign two values from one variable.

Would element have to be an array in order for the above to successfully assign values to the left hand side array?

Answer 1

That is syntactic sugar, that means:

type = element[0], clientId = element[1];

Also, you should know, that there is a place where you can see in what coffeescript is compiled: http://coffeescript.org/ (try coffeescript tab)

All your coffeescript code in javascript:

getContent: function(index) {
  var clientId, content, element, store, type;
  content = this.get('content');
  element = content.objectAt(index);

  if (element != null) {
    type = element[0], clientId = element[1];
    store = this.get('store');

    if (clientId != null) {
      return store.findByClientId(type, clientId);
    }
  }
}