Javascript ENUM pattern naming convention

Question

I am working on a javascript project which requires use of javascript "Enums" meaning Objects like:

var WinnerEnum = {             Player1: 1,             Player2: 2,             Draw: 0     }; 

This is working great for me, however, I have no idea what is the proper way (according to convention) to name the Enum because as far as I know only class names start with a capital letter (indicating the ability to call a constructor on).

JSHint also outputs the following warning:

Missing 'new' prefix when invoking a constructor. 

If there is no convention, I would appreciate a good way to name enums that would not confuse them with class names. Update 2014 : JSHint no longer does this.

Answer 1

That is indeed the correct way to name the enum, but the enum values should be ALL_CAPS instead of UpperCamelCase, like this:

var WinnerEnum = {     PLAYER_1: 1,     PLAYER_2: 2,     DRAW: 0 }; 

This is similar to Java's naming convention for enums.

Some references:

• Google JavaScript Style Guide
• Stijn de Witt's Blog
• Enumify documentation

As with coding style in general, you'll find people doing things in many different ways, with each way having its own set of good reason. To make things easiest for anyone reading and working with your code, however, I would recommend using the style which has the most authoritative reference and therefore usually the most widespread adoption.

I couldn't find any reference more authoritative than Google's style guide and the writings above, written by people who have given some serious thought to enums, but I'd be interested to hear of any better references.