How to retrieve the constructor's name in JavaScript?

Question

Assume the following program:

var SomeConstructor = function() { }; var instance = = new SomeConstructor (); 

The expression instance instanceof SomeConstructor yields True, so instance has to know somehow that it was constructed by the function SomeConstructor. Is there way to retrieve the name SomeConstructor directly from instance?

(In my problem at hand, I have a hierarchy of prototypes implementing possible signals in my application. I have to access the type of a signal which shall be equivalent to the constructor used to create that signal.)

Answer 1

On Chrome (7.0.544.0 dev), if I do:

function SomeConstructor() { }  var instance = new SomeConstructor();  console.log(instance.constructor.name); 

it prints 'SomeConstructor'...but if SomeConstructor is defined as an unnamed function as you have it, it will print an empty string instead.

If I print instance.constructor it prints the same thing as it does if I print SomeConstructor in the code you have. The instanceof operator need only compare these two values to see that they are equal to be able to return true.