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How can I implement traits in javascript ?
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Traits are a way to add semantics to existing types without risking unintentional interference with existing code. Traits are an alternative to inheritance as a method for implementing polymorphism, and all the modern languages have them: think of go, haskell and rust just to name a few.
JavaScript does not support multiple inheritance. Inheritance of property values occurs at run time by JavaScript searching the prototype chain of an object to find a value.
The Prototypal Inheritance is a feature in javascript used to add methods and properties in objects. It is a method by which an object can inherit the properties and methods of another object. Traditionally, in order to get and set the [[Prototype]] of an object, we use Object. getPrototypeOf and Object.
Summary. Mixin – is a generic object-oriented programming term: a class that contains methods for other classes. Some other languages allow multiple inheritance. JavaScript does not support multiple inheritance, but mixins can be implemented by copying methods into prototype.
function Trait (methods) {
this.traits = [methods];
};
Trait.prototype = {
constructor: Trait
, uses: function (trait) {
this.traits = this.traits.concat (trait.traits);
return this;
}
, useBy: function (obj) {
for (var i = 0; i < this.traits.length; ++i) {
var methods = this.traits [i];
for (var prop in methods) {
if (methods.hasOwnProperty (prop)) {
obj [prop] = obj [prop] || methods [prop];
}
}
}
}
};
Trait.unimplemented = function (obj, traitName) {
if (obj === undefined || traitName === undefined) {
throw new Error ("Unimplemented trait property.");
}
throw new Error (traitName + " is not implemented for " + obj);
};
Example:
var TEq = new Trait ({
equalTo: function (x) {
Trait.unimplemented (this, "equalTo");
}
, notEqualTo: function (x) {
return !this.equalTo (x);
}
});
var TOrd = new Trait ({
lessThan: function (x) {
Trait.unimplemented (this, "lessThan");
}
, greaterThan: function (x) {
return !this.lessThanOrEqualTo (x);
}
, lessThanOrEqualTo: function (x) {
return this.lessThan (x) || this.equalTo (x);
}
, greaterThanOrEqualTo: function (x) {
return !this.lessThan (x);
}
}).uses (TEq);
function Rational (numerator, denominator) {
if (denominator < 0) {
numerator *= -1;
denominator *= -1;
}
this.numerator = numerator;
this.denominator = denominator;
}
Rational.prototype = {
constructor: Rational
, equalTo: function (q) {
return this.numerator * q.numerator === this.denominator * q.denominator;
}
, lessThan: function (q) {
return this.numerator * q.denominator < q.numerator * this.denominator;
}
};
TOrd.useBy (Rational.prototype);
var x = new Rational (1, 5);
var y = new Rational (1, 2);
[x.notEqualTo (y), x.lessThan (y)]; // [true, true]
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