functions-in-es6

A walk through, Reflection and tests for different kinds of functions in JavaScript till ES2015 spec.

Run tests

Using Node

npm test

Using v8

cd src
/path/to/d8 test.js

(or) if you have d8 in your $PATH,

npm run v8

How it started ?

The idea is to detect from a reference the type of function - arrow, class or a normal function. And to detect before instantiating if the reference is instantiable.

This repository is about defining the function getFunctionType which returns the type of function input -

arrow
class
method
generator
function
generator-method

Definitions

Source: http://stackoverflow.com/a/31947622/556124

arrow functions are functions that cannot be used as constructors, and don't have a .prototype property. However, methods don't either. They inherit from Function.prototype.

classes are functions that can be called without new, and that have a .prototype object which is normally not empty. If extend was used, they don't inherit from Function.prototype.
functions are functions that can be called either way, and do have a .prototype that is normally empty. They inherit from Function.prototype.
generator functions are functions that do have a .prototype which inherits from the intrinsic GeneratorPrototype object, and they inherit from the intrinsic Generator object.

Arrow

let A = () => {};
let B = {
  x: () => {}
};

Class

class A {}

function B() {}
B.prototype.x = function() {};

Method

class A {
  method() {}
}
let B = {
  method() {}
};

Generator

function *A() {}
let B = {
  x: function *() {}
};

Function

function A() {}
let B = {
  x: function() {}
};

Generator Method

let A = {
  *x() {}
};
class B {
  *x() {}
}

Implementation

`get-function-type.js`

Assumptions and other gotchas

NO TRANSPILING

Don't transpile this using babel or traceur. It will give your absolutely wrong results.

Requires ES6 features

arrows
generators
classes
enhanced object literals
let, const
Map
Array.prototype.startsWith
etc...

Function with prototypes is a class

// this will be treated as a class
function x() {}
x.prototype.a = function() {}

// this is a simple function
function y() {}

methods are detected as methods only when declared as methods

// either via enhanced object literals
let x = {
  method() {}
};

// or via class
class x {
  method() {}
}

I don't know anyway to detect the following as methods yet.

function y() {}
y.prototype.method = function() {};
y.prototype.genmethod = function*() {};

generator methods have prototypes

let x = {
  a() {}
  *method() {}
};
// x.a.prototype does NOT exist
// x.method.prototype exists
class y {
  a() {}
  *method() {}
}
// new y().a.prototype does NOT exist
// new y().method.prototype exists

dpvenkatesh / functions-in-es6