Javascript prototype for the object itself

Question

I am building functions to help with urls:

var ap = { /* lots of things removed */ }

ap.url = function(base) {
    this.base  = base
    this.data  = "cb_=" + parseInt(Math.random()*99999999);
}

ap.url.prototype = {
    nv: function (n,v) {this.data=this.data+"&"+ n+"="+encodeURIComponent(v)},
    get: function () { return this.base + "?" + this.data; }
};


var u = new ap.url("site.com");
u.nv("p1", "123");
u.nv("p2", "456");

alert( u.get() )

And this appears to work ok.

Is it possible to create a prototype for the object itself? Like:

alert( u() )

I would like u() to do the same thing as u.get()

Pointy · Accepted Answer · 2013-01-27 15:52:51Z

2

No, because "u" is not a Function instance. You can however give your "ap.url" prototype a "toString()" and/or "valueOf()" functions to provide string and number representations. Those are used implicitly in various circumstances. Then you can (for example) use a reference to one of those objects in a string concatenation expression, and the runtime will implicitly call your "toString" function.

function C(v) {
  this.internal = v;
}

C.prototype = {
  toString: function() { return this.internal; }
};

var c = new C("hello world");

alert("The value is: " + c);

answered Jan 27, 2013 at 15:52

Pointy

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1 Comment

Brian McGinity Over a year ago

Hummm... IE sometimes has a problem figuring out if you're passing the object or if you wanted to call toString(). IE is fine with alert(c) when calling xyz(c) IE wants is passing the object. Chrome can figure it out.

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