-has = (wordToSearch: string, exactSearch: boolean = true): boolean => {
+has(wordToSearch: string, exactSearch: boolean = true): boolean {
2019-03-30
Spread syntax gotcha in JavaScript class methods
javascript, typescript, react, hooks
javascript, typescript, react, hooks
Photo by Jay_Β onΒ _Unsplash - Don't get caught
When you spread an object instance of a class to expose methods, methods might not be copied over.
Suppose that you have a Trie class,
which you want to make it immutable by returning a new object using syntax spread.
Not a good idea! Explained later.
class Trie { | |
has(word) { return true; } | |
} | |
function useTrie() { | |
const trie = React.useState(new Trie())[0]; | |
return { ...trie }; | |
} |
Printing out trie object instance returned from useTrie won't show has and an empty method is printed.
function App() { | |
const trie = useTrie(); | |
console.log(`{...trie}`, { ...trie }); | |
return <div className="App">Nothing to see here</div>; | |
} | |
// console shows | |
{...trie} Object {} |
Let's see why and how to solve the issue.
To understand the problem, let's see how the class is transpiled using TypeScript compiler (the transpiled babel code does the same but verbose so using TypeScript compiler here).
class Trie { | |
has(word) { return true; } | |
} | |
// Transpiled as | |
var Trie = /** @class */ (function () { | |
function Trie() { | |
} | |
Trie.prototype.has = function (word) { return true; }; | |
return Trie; | |
}()); |
has method was added to the prototype, not to an instance of Trie class.
So has is still available when you do const t = new Trie(); t.has(); // true.
Returning a new object using spread syntax didn't copy has
because spread syntax only copies own & enumerable properties.
But [prototype](https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/prototype) is not enumerable so has is not copied over.
You can resolve the issue in two ways.
You can explicitly bind this to the method in the constructor.
class Trie { | |
constructor() { | |
this.has = this.has.bind(this); | |
} | |
has(word) { return true; } | |
} |
, which is TypeScript-transpiled as
var Trie = /** @class */ (function () { | |
function Trie() { | |
this.has = this.has.bind(this); | |
} | |
Trie.prototype.has = function (word) { return true; }; | |
return Trie; | |
}()); |
And printing the trie instance returned from useTrie will now show .has method.
{...trie} | |
Object {has: function bound has()} |
has is still added to the prototype, which might not be what you want and it's increasing the file size.
So this brings us to,
When you declare the `has` method using an arrow syntax, it's transpiled by Transcript as shown below.
class TrieUsingArrow { | |
has = word => true; | |
} | |
// Transpiled by TypeScript as | |
var TrieUsingArrow = /** @class */ (function () { | |
function TrieUsingArrow() { | |
this.has = function (word) { return true; }; | |
} | |
return TrieUsingArrow; | |
}()); |
You can see that it's same without has being assigned to the prototype.
And the console log will still show has as part of the trie instance returned from useTrieUsingArrow.
{...trieUsingArrow} | |
Object {has: function ()} |
I recently released a new package @cshooks/usetrie and Nick Taylor generously provided an educational & thorough PR on how the code-base can be improved.
But not having a deep knowledge of TypeScript & Javascript, the following change caused an issue.
-has = (wordToSearch: string, exactSearch: boolean = true): boolean => {
+has(wordToSearch: string, exactSearch: boolean = true): boolean {
FYI - [useTrie](https://github.com/cshooks/hooks/blob/master/packages/useTrie/src/index.ts#L218) is implemented as shown below.
function useTrie( | |
initialWords: Word[], | |
isCaseInsensitive = true, | |
getText: TextSelector = obj => obj | |
): ITrie { | |
const trie = new Trie(initialWords, isCaseInsensitive, getText); | |
const [state, dispatch] = React.useReducer(reducer, { trie, word: '' }); | |
// add/remove removed for brivity | |
return { ...state.trie, add, remove }; | |
} |
I was retro-fitting a mutable data structure and exposing it as a hook.
But it's not a good way as you can see between Paul Gray & Dan Abramov's tweets.
So be aware of the issue discussed above when you are extracting an imperative logic out of React.
I've paid handsomely for not following React way of doing things.
I hope you the gotcha & the workaround helped you understand what's going on behind the scenes.
You can play around with the TypeScript transpiler on the Playground page.
& the console log results in the Sandbox.