I'm trying to do something with function.prototype.call to ensure a dynamic inheritance.
Here's a basic example what I'm trying to do:
class Person {
constructor(name, test) {
this.name = name;
this.test = test;
}
}
class Police {
constructor(name, badge, ...manyArgs) {
//Attempt 1:
Person.call(this, name, 'hello world');
//I also tried:
Person.constructor.call(this, name, 'hello world');
console.log(this.test); //This should print a log message of 'hello world'
}
}
The first attempt doesn't work because a class is not a function, and only functions have the call method in their prototype.
The second attempt doesn't give an error, but just doesn't inherit the test value set in Person.
Something that does work is if I would change the Person class to:
function Person(name, test) {
this.name = name;
this.test = test;
}
But unfortunately I don't have the luxery to change the class' code that I'm trying to inherit like this.
I've searched online a lot, but couldn't find why the call function wouldn't work for class-based classes. It's confusing for me because you can easily rewrite class-based classes to function-based classes.
Does anyone have an idea of how to use the prototype.call method to inherit a class?
Class constructors in JavaScript can only be called with new, Reflect.construct orsuper in a class extension. This tightens up and standardizes alternatives construction techniques using ordinary function objects.
Although class objects are functions and do inherit a call method, attempting to use className.call(...) will generate an error similar to
TypeError: class constructors must be invoked with 'new'
First answer: as a result of the above you will not be able to call the constructor of a class using `Function.prototype.call'.
As mentioned in comments, extending a base class is an alternative to creating a constructor function, but when written as a class declaration doesn't provide dynamic inheritance.
However this dosn't prevent you dynamically extending a class expression written inside a factory function. As an example:
class Person {
constructor(name, test) {
this.name = name;
this.test = test;
}
}
// factory function:
function policeExtend(baseClass) {
return class Police extends baseClass {
constructor(name, badge) {
super(name, "'just testing'");
this.badge = badge;
}
};
}
const PolicePerson = policeExtend(Person);
let officer = new PolicePerson("chief", 100);
console.log( officer.name, officer.badge, officer.test)