So I've been doing this for as long as I can remember, but I'm curious if this is really what I should be doing. You write a function that takes a parameter, so you anticipate it to have a value, but if it doesn't, you have a good reason to default it, to say zero. What I currently do is write a helper function:
function foo() { return foo(0); };
function foo(bar) { ... };
I just ran across an instance where I did this and I looked at it oddly for a few seconds before understanding my logic behind it. I come from php where it's trivial:
function foo(bar=0) { ... }
Is there a javascript alternative that I'm not aware of?
You can't have overloaded functions in JavaScript. Instead, use object based initialization, or check for the values and assign a default if none supplied.
In your example, the second function foo(bar)
will replace the first one.
Here's a function using object initialization.
function foo(config) {
extend(this, config);
}
where extend
is a function that merges the config object with the current object. It is similar to the $.extend
method in jQuery, or $extend
method of MooTools.
Invoke the function and pass it named key value pairs
foo({ bar: 0 });
The other way to initialize is to look at the supplied values, and assign a default if the value is not given
function foo(bar) {
bar = bar || 0;
}
This works as long as bar is not a falsy value. So foo(false)
or foo("")
will still initialize bar
to 0
. For such cases, do an explicit check.
function foo(bar) {
bar = (typeof bar == 'undefined' ? 0 : bar);
}
In JavaScript, the argument will be undefined if the user didn't pass it in. You can use the || operator to set the value of the argument if it's undefined:
function foo(bar) {
bar = bar || 0;
...
}
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