Can I augment Object, Function, Date, etc. with "static methods" in Node?

Question

If I create a Node.js module "augs" that contains

Object.foo = "bar";

Then type in the REPL

require("./augs");
typeof Object.foo

I get back 'undefined'.

We have a significant amount of code in our web app that relies on convenience methods added to Object, Function, Date, etc. We're trying to share some code between the frontend and the backend, but it seems like Node resets these constructor functions, or somehow otherwise prevents changes to them in a given module from leaking into other modules. While this is pretty smart and I appreciate the level of protection, is there some way to say "I know what I'm doing; please let me augment Object"?

Wayne · Accepted Answer · 2011-08-05 17:30:04Z

4

Assuming augs.js contains the following:

exports.augment = function(o) {
    o.foo = "bar";
}

Augment Object like this:

> var aug = require("./augs.js");
> aug.augment(Object);
> typeof Object.foo
'string'

Note: Assume you also export the following function:

exports.getObject = function () {
    return Object;
}

Then:

> var aug = require("./augs.js")
> aug.getObject() == Object
false

answered Aug 5, 2011 at 17:30

Wayne

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4 Comments

Domenic Over a year ago

Yeah, I guess this would work; I would have to convert our (rather large) augs.js to an exporting module, though, which kind of sucks. Thanks also for pointing out that Object from one module is not == Object from another module.

Peter Lyons Over a year ago

@lwburk can you elaborate on Object being different in different modules?

Wayne Over a year ago

@Peter - Simply put, the natives in a module are not the same natives as those in the script that loaded that module. Also: "Currently as of Modules 1.1 the spec for how an environment chooses to implement native classes in Modules is "undefined". That means it's up to each environment implementation to decide how it should work." wiki.commonjs.org/wiki/Modules/Natives

Peter Lyons Over a year ago

@lwburk Thanks for that! Has interesting implications and probably more pros (probably better interoperability and fewer collisions and inadvertent bugs) and cons (harder to magically monkey-patch, more complicated to understand and explain).

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