Question

I have a static javascript function that can take 1, 2 or 3 parameters:

function getData(id, parameters, callback) //parameters (associative array) and callback (function) are optional

I know I can always test if a given parameter is undefined, but how would I know if what was passed was the parameter or the callback?

What’s the best way of doing this?

---

Examples of what could be passed in:

1:

getData('offers');

2:

var array = new Array();
array['type']='lalal';
getData('offers',array);

3:

var foo = function (){...}
getData('offers',foo);

4:

getData('offers',array,foo);

Answer 1

You can know how many arguments were passed to your function and you can check if your second argument is a function or not:

function getData (id, parameters, callback) {
  if (arguments.length == 2) { // if only two arguments were supplied
    if (Object.prototype.toString.call(parameters) == "[object Function]") {
      callback = parameters; 
    }
  }
  //...
}

You can also use the arguments object in this way:

function getData (/*id, parameters, callback*/) {
  var id = arguments[0], parameters, callback;

  if (arguments.length == 2) { // only two arguments supplied
    if (Object.prototype.toString.call(arguments[1]) == "[object Function]") {
      callback = arguments[1]; // if is a function, set as 'callback'
    } else {
      parameters = arguments[1]; // if not a function, set as 'parameters'
    }
  } else if (arguments.length == 3) { // three arguments supplied
      parameters = arguments[1];
      callback = arguments[2];
  }
  //...
}

If you are interested, give a look to this article by John Resig, about a technique to simulate method overloading on JavaScript.