I am trying to create a function which will take arguments arg1, arg2...
then pass them into a constructor for a new object C like so: new C(arg1, arg2...)
, so to make a new instance of C
the user would simply have to call C(arg)
instead of new C(arg)
. Here is my first attempt:
var C = function(a){ this.a = a; }
var Cn = function(){
new C.apply(this, arguments);
}
Cn(0) // Should make a new C with a property a equal to 0
new C(0) // ie the same as this
Edit: Note, I need it to take an arbitrary number of arguments and not use eval. I'm making a library implementing Algebraic Data Types in js.
Edit: The solution was to take Jeremy's Idea and adapt it to take an unbounded number of arguments:
var C = function() {
// A unique object so we can identify when we used the 'newless' constructor
var newlessConstructorObj = {}
// Check to see if C has been called with `new`
if(!(this instanceof C))
// If not pass arguments as single arg back to C
return new C(newlessConstructorObj, arguments);
// Check to see if we got here from the line above, if so the arguments were passed in the second arg
var args = (arguments[0] === newlessConstructorObj) ? arguments[1] : arguments
// Do stuff with args
this.a = args[0];
}
C(0);
new C(0);
If you want to be able to call the function with or without the new keyword, you have to follow this pattern:
C = function(a) {
if (!(this instanceof C)) {
return new C(a);
}
this.a = a;
}
so to create a new instance of "C":
c = new C(a);
and
c = C(a);
will both return a properly formed instance of C