Do You Know JavaScript? Are You Sure? - Part Two

Sibeesh Venu
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Here, we are going to a see another article in the JavaScript series. In the first part, we have seen some basics that you can start with. In this article, we will be discussing about JavaScript object continuations and constructors etc. You can always see my other posts related to JavaScript here. We will be using Visual Studio for our development. If you are totally new to JavaScript, I strongly recommend you read some basics here. I hope you will like this. Now, let’s begin.

Download source code

Do you know JavaScript – Part Two

Background

This article is the second part of the series, which we have just started. If you haven’t read the first part yet, I strongly recommed you read it here.

Setting up the platform

To start, we are going to create HTML file and JS file.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<title>Do you know JavaScript? Are you sure? Part Two</title>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<script src="JavaScript.js"></script>
</head>
<body> </body>
</html>

Let’s begin our tutorial

Now, please open your JavaScript file. We have some scripts to write.

Constructor

Have you ever created any constructor in JavaScript? Before creating one, it is beter to know why there is a need for it. Let’s start with an example. Here, I am going to create an object called bike.

var bike = {
name: "Thnuderbird",
color: "Blue",
CC: "350",
company: "Royal Enfield",
tankCapacity: "20",
abs: false,
showName: function() {
console.log(this.name);
}
};

As you can read, this object holds the common properties of my bike Royal Enfield Thunderbird. Now, my question- is this is the only bike you know? Absolutely no, right? Therefore, suppose you need to create an object for the brand new Bajaj Dominor? What will you do? Creating an another object? What will you do, if you know more than 10 bikes? If your answer is creating 10 objects, it's not fair at all. Instead, why don’t we share the common properties like name, color, etc. Thus, we are going to create the objects but we are not going to create the properties again. Hence, let’s crete an object for Dominor. Before doing this, we need to create a bike construcor, as shown below.

function Bike(name, color, cc, company, tankCapacity, abs) {
this.name = name;
this.color = color;
this.cc = cc;
this.company = company;
this.tankCapacity = tankCapacity;
this.abs = abs;
this.showName = function() {
console.log('The name of the currnet bike is ' + this.name);
}
}

Now, we can create an object for Dominor, as shown below. Remember, when you write the word Bike, you can see that the intellisense is shown for you, which is shown below.

Constructor_intellisence

var dominor = new Bike("Dominor", "Black", "Bajaj", "20", true);
dominor.showName();

Have you noticed that we have not created the function showName in the object dominor, but rather in Bike, and we are still able to use that in the object domino? You can see an output as preceding in your Browser console.
Dominor_object_output

You can create an object for Royal Enfield Thunderbird, as shown below.

var thunderbird = new Bike("Thunderbird", "Marine", "Royal Enfield", "20", false);
thunderbird.showName();

Thunderbird_output

Distinguish between own and inherited properties

As the heading implies, we have two kinds of properties, own and inherited. Let’s create an example to understand that.

var thunderbird = new Bike("Thunderbird", "Marine", "Royal Enfield", "20", false);
thunderbird.isMine = true;
console.log(dominor.name + " is yours or not? ");
console.log("isMine" in dominor);
console.log(thunderbird.name + " is yours or not? ");
console.log("isMine" in thunderbird);
console.log("toString" in dominor);
console.log("toString" in thunderbird);

Before running it, can you please guess what will be the output of the above code block? If you find the answer, check whether your answer matches the output given below or not.

Own_and_inherited_properties

So isMine is the property, which we just added to the object thunderbird and the same is not available in the object dominor. It's cool. Why the property toString is available in both the objects, we have not added it to our object. This is because toString method is being inherited from the Object.prototype.

Use of hasOwnProperty

In the code given above, we have just seen how to check if any property is available in our object or not, but it doesn’t mean that it is its own property. To check it, we can use the hasOwnProperty. Let’s find out, how to use it now.

console.log(dominor.name + " is yours or not? ");
console.log(dominor.hasOwnProperty("isMine"));
console.log(thunderbird.name + " is yours or not? ");
console.log(thunderbird.hasOwnProperty("isMine"));
console.log(dominor.hasOwnProperty("toString"));
console.log(thunderbird.hasOwnProperty("toString"));

Once again, please try to answer it on your own, before you run it.

hasOwnProperty_output

Looping through the object

To loop through the each items in an object, you can use for loop, as shown below.

for (var itm in thunderbird) {
console.log(itm);
}

This is not the preferred way, as we have not checked for hasOwnProperties. We are supposed to iterate only the properties, which is its own.

Looping_through_the_items_in_an_Object

Thus, let’s rewrite the code given above, as shown below.

for (var itm in thunderbird) {
if (thunderbird.hasOwnProperty(itm)) {
console.log(itm + ":" + thunderbird[itm]);
}
}

Here, the output is given below.

Iteration_with_hasOwnProperty

We have seen enough about the objects. Do you have any idea on how can you delete the property from an object?

delete thunderbird.isMine;
for (var itm in thunderbird) {
if (thunderbird.hasOwnProperty(itm)) {
console.log(itm + ":" + thunderbird[itm]);
}
}

Delete_from_an_object

Now, it is time for a question. What would be the output of the preceeding code?

console.log(delete thunderbird.toString);

It will return true, now run it again. What is the output? It will be true again. This is because toString is an inherited property, so it won’t be deleted. Thus, thunderbird.toString will always gives you an output.

You can always download the source code attached to see the complete code and the Application. Happy coding..

References

See also

Articles related to JavaScript

Conclusion

Did I miss anything that you may think is required? Did you find this post useful? I hope you liked this article. Please share your valuable suggestions and feedback.

Your turn. What do you think?

If you have a question unrelated to this post, you’re better off posting it on C# Corner, Code Project, Stack Overflow, ASP.NET Forum instead of commenting here. Tweet or E-mail me a link to your question there and I’ll definitely try to help, if I can.

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