Question

There are lots of ways of doing the same thing in JavaScript. I have however picked up some ways, and some ways I frankly don’t understand. Could anyone please help me clarify some things? (I first learnt OOP in PHP.)

So a class can be made like this:

var object = new class(constructparams) {
    var private_members; // Can be accessed from within the code inside this definition only.
    this.public_members; // Can be accessed from everywhere.

    var private_functions = function() {}
    this.public_functions = function() {}
}

object.prototype.semi_public_members = function() {
    // Will be public, but can only access public members and methods.
    // E. g. private_members; is not available here.
}

Is this all correct so far?

Then someone likes the self-executing anonymous function approach to create a namespace. What is the point of that, when you have this way above that does the same thing, provides a namespace?

And lastly you have the object literal notation that I don’t understand.

var object = { // Something strange in here }

What is going on in there? Is it JSON? How is it used, how can I use it. What are the benefits of using this way instead of using the method I described? Why would you prototype instead of making the class correctly the first time?

Answer 1

Explaining the behaviour of different things in a constructed object by example:

// Defined as a variable from an anonymous function
// so that there is scope closure over variables
// shared across all instances and the prototype.
// If this isn't important, you don't need to close
// scope around it, so define directly
var ConstructedObject = (function constructorCreator () {
    // Define any variables/methods to be shared across
    // all instances but not polluting the namespace
    var sharedVariable = 'foo';

    // Next the actual constructor
    function ConstructedObject () {
        // Variables here are normally used to help
        // each instance and will be kept in memory as
        // long as the instance exists
        var instanceVariable = 'bar';
        // instance-specific properties get defined
        // using the "this" keyword, these are the
        // properties expected to be changed across
        // each different instance
        this.instanceProperty = true;
        this.instanceMethod = function () { return instanceVariable; };
        this.changeInstanceVar = function () { instanceVariable = 'foo'; };
            // you do have access to the shared
            // variables here if you need them.
    }
    // After the constructor, you set up the
    // prototype, if any. This is an object of shared
    // properties and methods to be inherited by every
    // instance made by the constructor, and it also
    // inherits the prototype's prototype, too.
    // Lets use a literal object for simplicity.
    ConstructedObject.prototype = {
        // Accessing the instance to which a method
        // applies is done using the "this" keyword,
        // similar to in the constructor
        sharedMethod : function () { return [sharedVariable, this.instanceMethod(),this.instanceProperty]; },
        changeSharedVar : function () { sharedVariable = 'bar'; }
        // properties may also be defined
    };
    // Finally, the constructor is returned so it
    // can be kept alive outside of the anonymous
    // function used to create it
    return ConstructedObject;
// and the anonymous function is called to execute
// what we've done so far
})();

After executing the above code, you have a constructor that creates objects with both instance-specific and shared variables. Now let’s look at how they behave by creating two of instances and comparing them before and after some changes.

// First create the two instances
var myObjA = new ConstructedObject(),
    myObjB = new ConstructedObject();
// Now compare them, the sharedMethod method we
// used in the prototype offers an easy way to
// do this
console.log( myObjA.sharedMethod(), myObjB.sharedMethod() );
// ["foo", "bar", true] ["foo", "bar", true]
// Next lets change the different variables in
// myObjB so we can see what happens, again the
// change* methods defined before let us do this
// easily
myObjB.changeInstanceVar();
myObjB.changeSharedVar();
// For completeness, lets also change the property
// on myObjB.
myObjB.instanceProperty = false;
// Now when we compare them again, we see that our
// changes to the myObjB instance have only changed
// the shared variables of myObjA
console.log( myObjA.sharedMethod(), myObjB.sharedMethod() );
// ["bar", "bar", true] ["bar", "foo", false]

Here are the two logged statements together for easier viewing

//     myObjA               myObjB
["foo", "bar", true] ["foo", "bar", true]
["bar", "bar", true] ["bar", "foo", false]