Backbone View: Inherit and extend events from parent

Question

One way is:

var ChildView = ParentView.extend({
   events: function(){
      return _.extend({},ParentView.prototype.events,{
          'click' : 'onclickChild'
      });
   }
});

Another would be:

var ParentView = Backbone.View.extend({
   originalEvents: {
      'click': 'onclick'
   },
   //Override this event hash in
   //a child view
   additionalEvents: {
   },
   events : function() {
      return _.extend({},this.originalEvents,this.additionalEvents);
   }
});

var ChildView = ParentView.extend({
   additionalEvents: {
      'click' : ' onclickChild'
   }
});

To check whether Events is function or object

var ChildView = ParentView.extend({
   events: function(){
      var parentEvents = ParentView.prototype.events;
      if(_.isFunction(parentEvents)){
          parentEvents = parentEvents();
      }
      return _.extend({},parentEvents,{
          'click' : 'onclickChild'
      });
   }
});

The soldier.moth answer is a good one. Simplifying it further you could just do the following

var ChildView = ParentView.extend({
   initialize: function(){
       _.extend(this.events, ParentView.prototype.events);
   }
});

Then just define your events in either class in the typical way.

You could also use the defaults method to avoid creating the empty object {}.

var ChildView = ParentView.extend({
  events: function(){
    return _.defaults({
      'click' : 'onclickChild'
    }, ParentView.prototype.events);
  }
});

If you use CoffeeScript and set a function to events, you can use super.

class ParentView extends Backbone.View
  events: ->
    'foo' : 'doSomething'

class ChildView extends ParentView
  events: ->
    _.extend {}, super,
      'bar' : 'doOtherThing'

Wouldn't it be easier to create specialized base constructor from Backbone.View that handles the inheritance of events up the hierarchy.

BaseView = Backbone.View.extend {
    # your prototype defaults
},
{
    # redefine the 'extend' function as decorated function of Backbone.View
    extend: (protoProps, staticProps) ->
      parent = this

      # we have access to the parent constructor as 'this' so we don't need
      # to mess around with the instance context when dealing with solutions
      # where the constructor has already been created - we won't need to
      # make calls with the likes of the following:   
      #    this.constructor.__super__.events
      inheritedEvents = _.extend {}, 
                        (parent.prototype.events ?= {}),
                        (protoProps.events ?= {})

      protoProps.events = inheritedEvents
      view = Backbone.View.extend.apply parent, arguments

      return view
}

This allows us to reduce(merge) the events hash down the hierarchy whenever we create a new 'subclass'(child constructor) by using the redefined extend function.

# AppView is a child constructor created by the redefined extend function
# found in BaseView.extend.
AppView = BaseView.extend {
    events: {
        'click #app-main': 'clickAppMain'
    }
}

# SectionView, in turn inherits from AppView, and will have a reduced/merged
# events hash. AppView.prototype.events = {'click #app-main': ...., 'click #section-main': ... }
SectionView = AppView.extend {
    events: {
        'click #section-main': 'clickSectionMain'
    }
}

# instantiated views still keep the prototype chain, nothing has changed
# sectionView instanceof SectionView => true 
# sectionView instanceof AppView => true
# sectionView instanceof BaseView => true
# sectionView instanceof Backbone.View => also true, redefining 'extend' does not break the prototype chain. 
sectionView = new SectionView { 
    el: ....
    model: ....
} 

By creating a specialized view: BaseView that redefines the extend function, we can have subviews(like AppView, SectionView) that want to inherit their parent view's declared events simply do so by extending from BaseView or one of its derivatives.

We avoid the need to programmatically define our event functions in our subviews, which in most cases need to refer to the parent constructor explicitly.

Short version of @soldier.moth's last suggestion:

var ChildView = ParentView.extend({
  events: function(){
    return _.extend({}, _.result(ParentView.prototype, 'events') || {}, {
      'click' : 'onclickChild'
    });
  }
});