I've seen a slide that presented Fab, a node.js framework.
Is this JavaScript?
Could someone explain what is going on in that code?
I'm all lost.
I've seen a slide that presented Fab, a node.js framework.
Is this JavaScript?
Could someone explain what is going on in that code?
I'm all lost.
Is plain JavaScript, it is a function chaining pattern.
The first line, ( fab = require("fab") )
includes the fab
function and returns a reference to it.
All the subsequent parentheses are function calls, each function invocation returns probably the same function again and again.
The pattern probably looks like this simplified example:
var foo = function (arg) {
// detect what the argument is
if (typeof arg == 'function') {
// do something with arg
console.log('function: '+arg());
} else if (arg instanceof RegExp) {
// arg is a RegExp...
console.log('A RegExp: '+arg);
} else if (typeof arg == "string") {
// arg is a string
console.log('A string: '+arg);
}
return foo; // return a reference to itself
};
(foo)
(function() { return "Foo "; })
(/bar/)
(" baz!");
Outputs:
function: Foo A RegExp: /bar/ A string: baz!
That's hard to follow indeed; it doesn't really look like Javascript at all...
Anyway, FAB takes advantage of returning a pointer to the function which was called. For example:
function doSomething(str){
alert(str);
return arguments.callee;
}
// Alerts 'hi' and then 'there'
doSomething('hi')('there');
Of course you can implement extra conditions, like counting the number of arguments or checking the type of arguments passed in. For example:
function doSomething(){
if(arguments.length == 1){
alert(arguments[0])
}
else if(arguments.length == 2){
alert(arguments[0] + arguments[1]);
}
return arguments.callee;
}
doSomething
("Hi, 3 + 4 is:")
(3, 4);
The last example alerts:
> Hi, 3 + 4 is:
> 7