Question

This is the best way I can think of phrasing this question, given this JavaScript “class” definition:

var Quota = function(hours, minutes, seconds){
    if (arguments.length === 3) {
        this.hours = hours;
        this.minutes = minutes;
        this.seconds = seconds;

        this.totalMilliseconds = Math.floor((hours * 3600000)) + Math.floor((minutes * 60000)) + Math.floor((seconds * 1000));
    }
    else if (arguments.length === 1) {
        this.totalMilliseconds = hours;

        this.hours = Math.floor(this.totalMilliseconds / 3600000);
        this.minutes = Math.floor((this.totalMilliseconds % 3600000) / 60000);
        this.seconds = Math.floor(((this.totalMilliseconds % 3600000) % 60000) / 1000);
    }

    this.padL = function(val){
        return (val.toString().length === 1) ? "0" + val : val;
    };

    this.toString = function(){
        return this.padL(this.hours) + ":" + this.padL(this.minutes) + ":" + this.padL(this.seconds);
    };

    this.valueOf = function(){
        return this.totalMilliseconds;
    };
};

and the following test setup code:

var q1 = new Quota(23, 58, 50);
var q2 = new Quota(0, 1, 0);
var q3 = new Quota(0, 0, 10);

console.log("Quota 01 is " + q1.toString());    // Prints "Quota 01 is 23:58:50"
console.log("Quota 02 is " + q2.toString());    // Prints "Quota 02 is 00:01:00"
console.log("Quota 03 is " + q3.toString());    // Prints "Quota 03 is 00:00:10"

Is there any way of implicitly creating q4 as a Quota object using the addition operator as follows…

var q4 = q1 + q2 + q3;
console.log("Quota 04 is " + q4.toString());    // Prints "Quota 04 is 86400000"

rather than resorting to…

var q4 = new Quota(q1 + q2 + q3);
console.log("Quota 04 is " + q4.toString());    // Prints "Quota 04 is 24:00:00"

If not what are the best practice recommendations in this area for making custom numeric JavaScript objects composable via the arithmetic operators?

Answer 1

As far as I’m aware, Javascript (at least as it exists now) doesn’t support operator overloading.

The best I can suggest is a class method for making new quota objects from several others. Here’s a quick example of what I mean:

// define an example "class"
var NumClass = function(value){
    this.value = value;
}
NumClass.prototype.toInteger = function(){
    return this.value;
}

// Add a static method that creates a new object from several others
NumClass.createFromObjects = function(){
    var newValue = 0;
    for (var i=0; i<arguments.length; i++){
        newValue += arguments[i].toInteger();
    }
    return new this(newValue)
}

and use it like:

var n1 = new NumClass(1);
var n2 = new NumClass(2);
var n3 = new NumClass(3);

var combined = NumClass.createFromObjects(n1, n2, n3);