Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 5: Javascript Closures

Closures are a tricky concept in Javascript. They seem deceptively simple but there are a lot of intricacies that can trip up developers. To start understanding closures, we need to start with scope – in Javascript, a function has access to it’s parent’s context, grandparent’s  context, etc. up the scope chain. To see this try the code,

var X = "window";

function outermost() {
    var Y = "outermost";

    function inner() {
        // Knows about the parent function's Y
        alert(Y);

        function innermost() {
            // Knows about the grandparent function's Y
            alert(Y);
            // Knows about the greatgrandparent's X
            alert(X);
        }
        innermost();
    }
    inner();
}
outermost();

This seems simple enough, even expected. Now here’s the trick, let’s return some function pointers,

var X = "window";

function outermost() {
    var Y = "outermost";

    function inner() {
        // Knows about the parent function's Y
        alert(Y);

        function innermost() {
            // Knows about the grandparent function's Y
            alert(Y);
            // Knows about the greatgrandparent's X
            alert(X);
        }

        // 'inner' returns a reference to the 'innermost' function
        return innermost;
    }
    
    // 'outermost' returns a reference to the 'inner' function
    return inner;
}

Now let’s call these functions,

// Get the reference to the 'inner' function
var inr = outermost();

// Call the 'inner' function
inr();  // alerts 'outermost'

// Get the reference to the innermost function
var inmost = inr(); // alerts 'outermost'

// Call the 'innermost' function
inmost();   // alerts 'outermost' and 'window'

As you can see, when we call the ‘innermost’ function, using the reference returned by the call to ‘inner’, it still has access to the X and Y values as they were in scope when the ‘innermost’ function was defined. This is Javascript’s closure – capturing information at the point of definition, so that the information can be used at the point of execution. Also the variables are not copies – they are references.

A very common problem that occurs is in the unintended creation of closure,

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    // This creates a closure!
    elements[i].onclick = function() { alert(i); };
}

Now clicking on any element will alert ‘4’, why? Because all of the functions we created have a reference (not a copy) to the outer var i, probably not the effect you want. To fix this,

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) {
    // Don't create a function - no closure
    elements[i].onclick = Handle(i);
}

function Handle(i) {
    return function() { alert(i); };
}

You can read up more about closures here.

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 4: The Prototype Property

All Javascript objects have a property called ‘prototype’ which can contain an object reference. Javascript uses this property to implement it’s inheritance hierarchy – by putting a reference to the parent object via the ‘prototype’ property. To see this try the following code,

// The base class
function Base() {
    // Public property
    this.aPublicProperty = "This is a public property of the type Base";
}

This initializes the prototype property (internally) to an empty class.

// 'prototype' is not null, it is initialized internally like this - Base.prototype = { }
alert(Base.prototype);   // [object Object]

Now we can add fields/properties to the (empty) object that the prototype refers,

// Add a new field/property
Base.prototype.newField = "This is a new field of the type Base's prototype";
Base.prototype.aPublicProperty = "This is a public property of the type Base's prototype";

Now here’s the trick that transforms this innocuous looking property into the basis of Javascript’s object oriented implementation: when you access a property on a class, if the class doesn’t have the property, Javascript will look for the property on the object the prototype refers to. Now we can see how this might lead to inheritance – the derived class (the object) can access the base class’s (the object’s prototype’s object) methods. Also if both the object and the object’s prototype referred object have the same property, the object’s property overrides the prototype referred object’s property.

var baseInstance = new Base();
alert(baseInstance.newField);        // Access the prototype's property
alert(baseInstance.constructor.prototype.aPublicProperty);  // Access the prototype's property - will see later
alert(Base.prototype.aPublicProperty);  // Access the prototype's property via Base
alert(baseInstance.aPublicProperty);    // Override the prototype's property

We are starting to see object-oriented behaviors implemented via the prototype property. The prototype property refer’s to the object’s base class. Let’s take this further,

// Derived from the base class
function Derived() { }
Derived.prototype = new Base();

// Another class derived from the base class
function AnotherDerived() { }
AnotherDerived.prototype = new Base();

// A class derived from the derived class
function DerivedDerived() { }
DerivedDerived.prototype = new Derived();

This results in a class hierarchy that looks like this,

Now that we have the class structure, let’s create some instances,

// Create some instances
var derivedInstance = new Derived();
var anotherDerivedInstance = new AnotherDerived();
var derivedDerivedInstance = new DerivedDerived();

Let’s add a new property to the Base’s prototype.

// Add a new property to the Base's prototype
Base.prototype.testInheritance = "Every object that derives from Base now has this property";
alert(derivedDerivedInstance.testInheritance);

And add a new property to the Derived’s prototype,

// Add a new property to the Derived's prototype
Derived.prototype.testInheritance = "Every object that derives from Derived now has this property";
// Does that mean the Base now has the property? No.
alert(baseInstance.testInheritance); // undefined
alert(derivedDerivedInstance.testInheritance);

For more information about Javascript prototypes see here.

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 3: Javascript and JSON

JSON stands for Javascript Object Notation. In the first post we saw how to define a class in Javascript so that an object instance can be created. Now let’s create an object using the object literal notation. In Javascript, there is the concept of a literal notation to define an object,

// A string literal
var stringLiteral = "A string literal";

// An array literal
var arrayLiteral = [1,2,3];

Extending this concept to objects, we create an anonymous type in Javascript using an object literal,

// Create an anonymous type by using the object literal notation,
var myObjectUsingJSON = {

    // Public field – a name/value pair
    aPublicField : "This is a public field of an anonymous type",

    // Public method – another name/value pair
    aPublicMethod : function() { return this.aPublicField; } 
}

// Call the anonymous type’s public field or method
alert(myObjectUsingJSON.aPublicMethod()); 

We created an instance (myObjectUsingJSON) of the the anonymous type using the object literal notation and the anonymous object has two members which are name-value pairs. This way of representing (and creating) an object is called the Javascript Object Notation or JSON. It’s just a way of creating an anonymous type using name-value pairs. For comparison, recall how we similarly create anonymous types in C#,

// Anonymous type in C#
var anonType = new { Name = "John", Age = 50 };

Now let’s create a more complicated class using this object notation,

// Create an anonymous type...
var myObjectUsingJSON = {

    // ...with a key whose value is a simple array...
    anArray : ["This", "array", "has", 5, "items"],

    // ...and another key whose value is an array with a nested object...
    anotherArray : ["This", "array", "has", 6, { X: 1 }, "items"],

    // ...and another key whose value happens to be another anonymous object...
    anObject : {
        key1 : "A string",                           /* ...with one key whose value is a string... */
        key2 : function() { return "Hello"; },       /* ...and another key whose value is a function... */
        key3 : {                                     /* ...and another key whose value happens to be another anonymous object */
            key31 : true,                            /* ...with a key whose value is a boolean... */
            key32 : function() { return { Name: "World!" }; }, /* ...and a key whose value is a function that returns an object */
            key33 : {                                          /* This key's value happens to get yet another anonymous object */
                key331 : function() { return "That’s deep!"; }
            }
        }
    }
}

// Access an array element
alert(myObjectUsingJSON.anArray[2]);

// Access the inner object
alert(myObjectUsingJSON.anotherArray[4].X);

// Get a value from a name
alert(myObjectUsingJSON.anObject.key3.key31);

// Access the object returned by the function
var funcReturn = myObjectUsingJSON.anObject.key3.key32();
alert(funcReturn.Name);

// Call the deepest function
alert(myObjectUsingJSON.anObject.key3.key33.key331());

As you can see it’s pretty easy to nest anonymous objects to create a class structure. This representation of a class is more compact than XML, in terms of raw serialized bytes sent over the wire. So, Javascript prefers using this object notation when sending/receiving data. A string can easily be eval-ed into an object,

// The JSON string
var jsonString = "{ anotherArray: ['This', 'array', 'has', 6, { X: 1 }, 'items'] }";

// Eval the JSON string into an object
var myEvaledJSONObject = eval('(' + jsonString + ')');

// Access the object
alert(myEvaledJSONObject.anotherArray[4].X);

For more information about JSON see here.

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 2: Javascript Inheritance

Now that we created a base Javascript class in the first post, let’s inherit from it to get a derived class.

// Define the derived function (remember there is no 'class' keyword in Javascript)
function MyDerivedClass() { }

// Derive from MyClass, equivalent to –> public class MyDerivedClass : MyClass
MyDerivedClass.prototype = new MyClass();

// Create an instance of the derived class
var myderivedClass = new MyDerivedClass();

// Get the public field
alert(myderivedClass.aPublicField);

// Call the public method
alert(myderivedClass.aPublicMethod());

Woah! That was simple! Notice that MyClass’s private methods and the runtime field (aRuntimeField) we gave to MyClass in the last post is not available to MyDerivedClass.

Let’s override the base classe’s public fields and methods and see what happens,

// Define the derived function (remember there is no 'class' keyword in Javascript
function MyDerivedClass() {

    // Override the base's public field
    this.aPublicField = "This is a public field of the type MyDerivedClass";

    // Override the base's public method
    this.aPublicMethod = function() { return this.aPublicField; }
}

// Derive from MyClass, equivalent to –> public class MyDerivedClass : MyClass
MyDerivedClass.prototype = new MyClass();

// Create an instance of the derived class
var myderivedClass = new MyDerivedClass();

// Get the public field
alert(myderivedClass.aPublicField);

// Call the public method
alert(myderivedClass.aPublicMethod());

You’ll see that the base classes public fields and methods have been overridden in the derived class.

We can obviously derive again,

// Derive from MyDerivedClass
function MyDerivedDerivedClass() {

    // Override the base's public field
    this.aPublicField = "This is a public field of the type MyDerivedDerivedClass";

    // Override the base's public method
    this.aPublicMethod = function() { return this.aPublicField; }
}

// Derive from MyDerivedClass, equivalent to –> public class MyDerivedDerivedClass : MyDerivedClass
MyDerivedDerivedClass.prototype = new MyDerivedClass();

// Create an instance of the derived class
var myderivedderivedClass = new MyDerivedDerivedClass();

// Call the public method
alert(myderivedderivedClass.aPublicField);

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 1: Javascript Classes

While the Javascript language offers many of the constructs required for object-oriented programming, they remain largely unused. Today we’ll take a look at how to start with object-oriented programing in Javascript. by defining a class in Javascript. We’ll use the simple HTML file to call our script file,

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.0 Transitional//EN">
<html>
    <head>
        <title>Hello Javascript!</title>
        <script type="text/javascript" src="MyScript.js"></script>
    </head>
    <body>
        Hello Javascript!
    </body>
</html>

Now let’s create a class definition (in MyScript.js). Note that there is no ‘class’ keyword in Javascript, the class definition is just a function definition,

function MyClass() {

    // Public field
    this.aPublicField = "This is a public field of the type MyClass";

    // Private field
    var aPrivateField = "This is a private field of the type MyClass";

    // Public method
    this.aPublicMethod = function() {
        // Use the private method
        if (aPrivateMethod()) { return this.aPublicField; } 
        else { return aPrivateField; }
    }

    // Private method
    function aPrivateMethod() {
        return true;
    }
    
    // Oops! We can expose the private field
    this.exposePrivateField = aPrivateField;
    // and the private method
    this.exposePrivateMethod = aPrivateMethod;
}

// Create an instance of MyClass using the ‘new’ keyword
var myclass = new MyClass();

// Get the public field
alert(myclass.aPublicField);

// Call the public method
alert(myclass.aPublicMethod());

// Call the private field – can’t get to them directly
alert(myclass.exposePrivateField);
alert(myclass.exposePrivateMethod());

So it’s pretty simple to create a class in Javascript. We can also create a runtime field for the class,

// Create an instance of MyClass
var myclass = new MyClass();

// Create a field at runtime
myclass.aRuntimeField = "This is a runtime field of the type MyClass";

// View the field value
alert(myclass.aRuntimeField);

Javascript Concepts Simplified

In this series, we’ll take a look at some core Javascript concepts.

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 1: Javascript Classes

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 2: Javascript Inheritance

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 3: Javascript and JSON

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 4: The Prototype Property

Javascript Concepts Simplified Part 5: Javascript Closures