I am building an application in Node using Hapi.JS.
I have a class for an authentication plugin that is giving me all sorts of problems. When I attempt to reference this
from within a method on the class, I get an error saying that this
is undefined. Why is this happening?
An excerpt:
class OAuth {
constructor () {}
register (server, err, next) {
this.server = server;
this.registerRoutes();
}
registerRoutes () {
console.log(this.server.route);
this.server.route([
{
method: 'POST',
path: '/oauth/token',
config: {
auth: false,
handler: function(request,reply){
console.log("test");
reply("test");
}
}
},
{
method: 'GET',
path: '/test',
config: {
auth: false,
handler: function(request,reply){
console.log("test");
reply("test");
}
}
}
]);
}
}
module.exports = new OAuth();
Elsewhere this is being called like:
const oauth = require('./oauth');
oauth.register(server);
Every time the register function is called, I receive this error:
TypeError: Cannot set property 'server' of undefined
Why on earth is my instance not working?
ES6 class with babel doesn't autobind this
for you. This is a common misconception since class
was introduced. There are multiple ways to solve it.
Use ES7. Babel has an experimental (as of this post) class-properties plugin.
class OAuth {
constructor () {}
register = (server, err, next) => {
this.server = server
this.registerRoutes()
}
registerRoutes = () => {}
}
How does this work? When you use arrow-functions along with the class-properties plugin, it gets transformed to something like the following, binding this as you expect when you use class
syntax.
var OAuth = function OAuth() {
var _this = this;
_classCallCheck(this, OAuth);
this.register = function (server, err, next) {
_this.server = server;
_this.registerRoutes();
};
this.registerRoutes = function () {};
}
Bind your class properties in the constructor
class OAuth {
constructor () {
// `this` is the OAuth instance in the constructor
this.register = this.register.bind(this)
this.registerRoutes = this.registerRoutes.bind(this)
}
register (server, err, next) {
// `this` is the global object.. NOT!
// after binding in the constructor, it's the OAuth instance ^_^
// provided you use `new` to initialize your instance
this.server = server
this.registerRoutes()
}
registerRoutes () {}
}
Use createClass
from react, which does the binding for you. Note we're only using react for its class property binding magic. We are not creating react components.
import React from 'react'
const OAuth = React.createClass({
register (server, err, next) {
this.server = server
this.registerRoutes()
}
registerRoutes () {}
})
Use only autoBind
from react-class. Here we're making a react component using ES6+ class syntax just to use the autoBind
method. We don't have to use componentWillMount
, render
, etc, which are provided with react components.
import { autoBind } from 'react-class'
class OAuth extends React.Component {
constructor(props) {
super(props)
autoBind(this)
}
register (server, err, next) {
this.server = server
this.registerRoutes()
}
registerRoutes () {}
}
Roll your own class property binder. It's a nice exercise, basically the same as option 2, possibly less code as well.
// call it in your constructor
bindStuff(this, ['register', 'registerRoutes', 'etc'])
// define it somewhere as
function bindStuff (context, props) {
props.forEach(prop => {
context[prop] = context[prop].bind(context);
})
}
If you actually want to create react components, you can combine arrow-functions and property initializers to do something like
class OAuthComponent extends React.Component {
whateverMethodYouWant = (event) => {
this.setState({somePropertyYouCareAbout: true}) // this is bound
}
anotherMethod = () => {
this.whateverMethodYouWant() // this is bound
}
}