My first submission is not so much a hidden feature as a rarely used application of the property re-definition feature. Because you can redefine an object's methods, you can cache the result of a method call, which is useful if the calculation is expensive and you want lazy evaluation. This gives the simplest form of memoization.
function Circle(r) {
this.setR(r);
}
Circle.prototype = {
recalcArea: function() {
this.area=function() {
area = this.r * this.r * Math.PI;
this.area = function() {return area;}
return area;
}
},
setR: function (r) {
this.r = r;
this.invalidateR();
},
invalidateR: function() {
this.recalcArea();
}
}
Refactor the code that caches the result into a method and you get:
Object.prototype.cacheResult = function(name, _get) {
this[name] = function() {
var result = _get.apply(this, arguments);
this[name] = function() {
return result;
}
return result;
};
};
function Circle(r) {
this.setR(r);
}
Circle.prototype = {
recalcArea: function() {
this.cacheResult('area', function() { return this.r * this.r * Math.PI; });
},
setR: function (r) {
this.r = r;
this.invalidateR();
},
invalidateR: function() {
this.recalcArea();
}
}
If you want a memoized function, you can have that instead. Property re-definition isn't involved.
Object.prototype.memoize = function(name, implementation) {
this[name] = function() {
var argStr = Array.toString.call(arguments);
if (typeof(this[name].memo[argStr]) == 'undefined') {
this[name].memo[argStr] = implementation.apply(this, arguments);
}
return this[name].memo[argStr];
}
};
Note that this relies on the standard array toString conversion and often won't work properly. Fixing it is left as an exercise for the reader.
My second submission is getters and setters. I'm surprised they haven't been mentioned yet. Because the official standard differs from the de facto standard (defineProperty vs. define[GS]etter) and Internet Explorer barely supports the official standard, they aren't generally useful. Maybe that's why they weren't mentioned. Note that you can combine getters and result caching rather nicely:
Object.prototype.defineCacher = function(name, _get) {
this.__defineGetter__(name, function() {
var result = _get.call(this);
this.__defineGetter__(name, function() { return result; });
return result;
})
};
function Circle(r) {
this.r = r;
}
Circle.prototype = {
invalidateR: function() {
this.recalcArea();
},
recalcArea: function() {
this.defineCacher('area', function() {return this.r * this.r * Math.PI; });
},
get r() { return this._r; }
set r(r) { this._r = r; this.invalidateR(); }
}
var unit = new Circle(1);
unit.area;
Efficiently combining getters, setters and result caching is a little messier because you have to prevent the invalidation or do without automatic invalidation on set, which is what the following example does. It's mostly an issue if changing one property will invalidate multiple others (imagine there's a "diameter" property in these examples).
Object.prototype.defineRecalcer = function(name, _get) {
var recalcFunc;
this[recalcFunc='recalc'+name.toCapitalized()] = function() {
this.defineCacher(name, _get);
};
this[recalcFunc]();
this.__defineSetter__(name, function(value) {
_set.call(this, value);
this.__defineGetter__(name, function() {return value; });
});
};
function Circle(r) {
this.defineRecalcer('area',
function() {return this.r * this.r * Math.PI;},
function(area) {this._r = Math.sqrt(area / Math.PI);},
);
this.r = r;
}
Circle.prototype = {
invalidateR: function() {
this.recalcArea();
},
get r() { return this._r; }
set r(r) { this._r = r; this.invalidateR(); }
}
