How to Implement DOM Data Binding in JavaScript

Question

• How would binding work for objects?
• How listening to change in the form might work?

An abstraction that updates both objects

I suppose there are other techniques, but ultimately I'd have an object that holds reference to a related DOM element, and provides an interface that coordinates updates to its own data and its related element.

The .addEventListener() provides a very nice interface for this. You can give it an object that implements the eventListener interface, and it'll invoke its handlers with that object as the this value.

This gives you automatic access to both the element and its related data.

Defining your object

Prototypal inheritance is a nice way to implement this, though not required of course. First you'd create a constructor that receives your element and some initial data.

function MyCtor(element, data) {
    this.data = data;
    this.element = element;
    element.value = data;
    element.addEventListener("change", this, false);
}

So here the constructor stores the element and data on properties of the new object. It also binds a change event to the given element. The interesting thing is that it passes the new object instead of a function as the second argument. But this alone won't work.

Implementing the eventListener interface

To make this work, your object needs to implement the eventListener interface. All that's needed to accomplish this is to give the object a handleEvent() method.

That's where the inheritance comes in.

MyCtor.prototype.handleEvent = function(event) {
    switch (event.type) {
        case "change": this.change(this.element.value);
    }
};

MyCtor.prototype.change = function(value) {
    this.data = value;
    this.element.value = value;
};

There are many different ways in which this could be structured, but for your example of coordinating updates, I decided to make the change() method only accept a value, and have the handleEvent pass that value instead of the event object. This way the change() can be invoked without an event as well.

So now, when the change event happens, it'll update both the element and the .data property. And the same will happen when you call .change() in your JavaScript program.

Using the code

Now you'd just create the new object, and let it perform updates. Updates in JS code will appear on the input, and change events on the input will be visible to the JS code.

var obj = new MyCtor(document.getElementById("foo"), "20");

// simulate some JS based changes.
var i = 0;
setInterval(function() {
    obj.change(parseInt(obj.element.value) + ++i);
}, 3000);

DEMO: http://jsfiddle.net/RkTMD/

So, I decided to throw my own solution in the pot. Here is a working fiddle. Note this only runs on very modern browsers.

What it uses

This implementation is very modern - it requires a (very) modern browser and users two new technologies:

• MutationObservers to detect changes in the dom (event listeners are used as well)
• Object.observe to detect changes in the object and notifying the dom. Danger, since this answer has been written O.o has been discussed and decided against by the ECMAScript TC, consider a polyfill.

How it works

• On the element, put a domAttribute:objAttribute mapping - for example bind='textContent:name'
• Read that in the dataBind function. Observe changes to both the element and the object.
• When a change occurs - update the relevant element.

The solution

Here is the dataBind function, note it's just 20 lines of code and could be shorter:

function dataBind(domElement, obj) {    
    var bind = domElement.getAttribute("bind").split(":");
    var domAttr = bind[0].trim(); // the attribute on the DOM element
    var itemAttr = bind[1].trim(); // the attribute the object

    // when the object changes - update the DOM
    Object.observe(obj, function (change) {
        domElement[domAttr] = obj[itemAttr]; 
    });
    // when the dom changes - update the object
    new MutationObserver(updateObj).observe(domElement, { 
        attributes: true,
        childList: true,
        characterData: true
    });
    domElement.addEventListener("keyup", updateObj);
    domElement.addEventListener("click",updateObj);
    function updateObj(){
        obj[itemAttr] = domElement[domAttr];   
    }
    // start the cycle by taking the attribute from the object and updating it.
    domElement[domAttr] = obj[itemAttr]; 
}

Here is some usage:

HTML:

<div id='projection' bind='textContent:name'></div>
<input type='text' id='textView' bind='value:name' />

JavaScript:

var obj = {
    name: "Benjamin"
};
var el = document.getElementById("textView");
dataBind(el, obj);
var field = document.getElementById("projection");
dataBind(field,obj);

Here is a working fiddle. Note that this solution is pretty generic. Object.observe and mutation observer shimming is available.

I'd like to add to my preposter. I suggest a slightly different approach that will allow you to simply assign a new value to your object without using a method. It must be noted though that this is not supported by especially older browsers and IE9 still requires use of a different interface.

Most notably is that my approach does not make use of events.

Getters and Setters

My proposal makes use of the relatively young feature of getters and setters, particularly setters only. Generally speaking, mutators allow us to "customize" the behavior of how certain properties are assigned a value and retrieved.

One implementation I'll be using here is the Object.defineProperty method. It works in FireFox, GoogleChrome and - I think - IE9. Haven't tested other browsers, but since this is theory only...

Anyways, it accepts three parameters. The first parameter being the object that you wish to define a new property for, the second a string resembling the the name of the new property and the last a "descriptor object" providing information on the behavior of the new property.

Two particularly interesting descriptors are get and set. An example would look something like the following. Note that using these two prohibits the use of the other 4 descriptors.

function MyCtor( bindTo ) {
    // I'll omit parameter validation here.

    Object.defineProperty(this, 'value', {
        enumerable: true,
        get : function ( ) {
            return bindTo.value;
        },
        set : function ( val ) {
            bindTo.value = val;
        }
    });
}

Now making use of this becomes slightly different:

var obj = new MyCtor(document.getElementById('foo')),
    i = 0;
setInterval(function() {
    obj.value += ++i;
}, 3000);

I want to emphasize that this only works for modern browsers.

Working fiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/Derija93/RkTMD/1/

I think my answer will be more technical, but not different as the others present the same thing using different techniques.
So, first things first, the solution to this problem is the use of a design pattern known as "observer", it let's you decouple your data from your presentation, making the change in one thing be broadcasted to their listeners, but in this case it's made two-way.

For the DOM to JS way

To bind the data from the DOM to the js object you may add markup in the form of data attributes (or classes if you need compatibility), like this:

<input type="text" data-object="a" data-property="b" id="b" class="bind" value=""/>
<input type="text" data-object="a" data-property="c" id="c" class="bind" value=""/>
<input type="text" data-object="d" data-property="e" id="e" class="bind" value=""/>

This way it can be accessed via js using querySelectorAll (or the old friend getElementsByClassName for compatibility).

Now you can bind the event listening to the changes in to ways: one listener per object or one big listener to the container/document. Binding to the document/container will trigger the event for every change made in it or it's child, it willhave a smaller memory footprint but will spawn event calls.
The code will look something like this:

//Bind to each element
var elements = document.querySelectorAll('input[data-property]');

function toJS(){
    //Assuming `a` is in scope of the document
    var obj = document[this.data.object];
    obj[this.data.property] = this.value;
}

elements.forEach(function(el){
    el.addEventListener('change', toJS, false);
}

//Bind to document
function toJS2(){
    if (this.data && this.data.object) {
        //Again, assuming `a` is in document's scope
        var obj = document[this.data.object];
        obj[this.data.property] = this.value;
    }
}

document.addEventListener('change', toJS2, false);

For the JS do DOM way

You will need two things: one meta-object that will hold the references of witch DOM element is binded to each js object/attribute and a way to listen to changes in objects. It is basically the same way: you have to have a way to listen to changes in the object and then bind it to the DOM node, as your object "can't have" metadata you will need another object that holds metadata in a way that the property name maps to the metadata object's properties. The code will be something like this:

var a = {
        b: 'foo',
        c: 'bar'
    },
    d = {
        e: 'baz'
    },
    metadata = {
        b: 'b',
        c: 'c',
        e: 'e'
    };
function toDOM(changes){
    //changes is an array of objects changed and what happened
    //for now i'd recommend a polyfill as this syntax is still a proposal
    changes.forEach(function(change){
        var element = document.getElementById(metadata[change.name]);
        element.value = change.object[change.name];
    });
}
//Side note: you can also use currying to fix the second argument of the function (the toDOM method)
Object.observe(a, toDOM);
Object.observe(d, toDOM);

I hope that i was of help.