Question

My expectation from the following code would be that if I checked a.name, it would search the prototype and return it as it was declared. Can anyone pinpoint what it is that is preventing JS from acknowledging my prototype?

var obj = function(parent){
    return {
        prototype: parent
    }
};

var me = { name: 'keith' };

var a = new obj(me)
// => undefined

a.name
// => undefined

a.prototype.name
// => "keith"

Answer 1

A property named “prototype” is just a property, it does not point to the object from which the object inherits. Use Object.getPrototypeOf or the non-standard __proto__ property to get that.

So what your function obj(me) returns is just an object with a property “prototype” which points to an object with a property “name” which points to the string keith. As your function returns an object, it makes no difference whether it is called with the new keyword or not.

For inheritance, the “prototype” property of the constructor function [object] is of concern. Every object created by this constructor (which does not return an object) with the new keyword inherits from the object to which the “prototype” property of the constructor points. So you could do this:

var Constructor = function() {
    console.log(this); // logs the currently created object
    // return nothing
}
Constructor.prototype = { name: 'keith' };

var a = new Constructor(); // logs an empty object
Object.getPrototypeOf(a) === Constructor.prototype; // true
a.name; // "keith" - inherited