Functional JavaScript: how to implement Function.prototype.not

Question

I was working on some code earlier today, when I realized, "Hey! This code would be more concise and semantic if I abstracted the idea of a boolean not out of an anonymous function and into a prototype function..."

Consider a predicate generator:

function equalTo(n) {
    return function(x) {
        return n==x;
    };
}

So you can use it like so:

[1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4].filter(equalTo(2)) == [2,2]

Now, my idea is to make a predicate "inverser":

Function.prototype.not = function() {
    //???
}

So that you can say:

[1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4].filter(equalTo(2).not) == [1,3,4,1,3,4]

My first stab at the implementation was probably very naive:

Function.prototype.not = function () {
    return ! this(arguments);
}

And probably why it didn't work.

How would you implement this function, and why?

I'm just trying to wrap my head around functional ideas, and know JavaScript well enough to know it can be used to do this, but just not how.

Answer 1

Your implementation won't work for several reasons:

• You need to return a function, not a boolean.
• You should pass the arguments as-is, not wrapped in an array.
• You should preserve the context (this keyword) that the function would have been called in.

I would implement it like this:

Function.prototype.not = function (context) {
    var func = this;
    return function() { return !func.apply(context || this, arguments); };
}

• I return an anonymous function (function() { ... })
• I call apply to call the original function in the current contexts with the actual arguments.
• (EDIT) Free bonus: I added an optional context parameter which will override this for the callback.

Answer 2

I would probably do it like so (but perhaps with some sort of namespacing):

function not (x) {
  return !x;
}

function id (x) {
  return x;
}

function compose (/*funcs*/) {
  var args = arguments.length
    ? Array.prototype.slice.call (arguments)
    : [id]
    ;
  return function () {
    var val = args [args.length - 1].apply (null, arguments);
    for (var i = args.length - 2; i >= 0; --i) {
      val = args [i] (val);
    }
    return val;
  };
}

---

[1,2,3,4,1,2,3,4].filter (compose (not, equalTo (2)));