Question

Previously, when I needed to store a number of related variables, I’d create a class.

function Item(id, speaker, country) {   this.id = id;   this.speaker = speaker;   this.country = country; } var myItems = [new Item(1, 'john', 'au'), new Item(2, 'mary', 'us')]; 

But I’m wondering if this is a good practice. Are there any other, better ways to simulate a struct in JavaScript?

Answer 1

The only difference between object literals and constructed objects are the properties inherited from the prototype.

var o = {   'a': 3, 'b': 4,   'doStuff': function() {     alert(this.a + this.b);   } }; o.doStuff(); // displays: 7 

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You could make a struct factory.

function makeStruct(names) {   var names = names.split(' ');   var count = names.length;   function constructor() {     for (var i = 0; i < count; i++) {       this[names[i]] = arguments[i];     }   }   return constructor; }  var Item = makeStruct('id speaker country'); var row = new Item(1, 'john', 'au'); alert(row.speaker); // displays: john