Use of .apply() with 'new' operator. Is th

Question

In JavaScript, I want to create an object instance (via the new operator), but pass an arbitrary number of arguments to the constructor. Is this possible?

What I want to do is something like this (but the code below does not work):

function Something(){
    // init stuff
}
function createSomething(){
    return new Something.apply(null, arguments);
}
var s = createSomething(a,b,c); // 's' is an instance of Something

---

The Answer

From the responses here, it became clear that there's no built-in way to call .apply() with the new operator. However, people suggested a number of really interesting solutions to the problem.

My preferred solution was this one from Matthew Crumley (I've modified it to pass the arguments property):

var createSomething = (function() {
    function F(args) {
        return Something.apply(this, args);
    }
    F.prototype = Something.prototype;

    return function() {
        return new F(arguments);
    }
})();

Answer 1

With ECMAScript5's Function.prototype.bind things get pretty clean:

function newCall(Cls) {
    return new (Function.prototype.bind.apply(Cls, arguments));
    // or even
    // return new (Cls.bind.apply(Cls, arguments));
    // if you know that Cls.bind has not been overwritten
}

It can be used as follows:

var s = newCall(Something, a, b, c);

or even directly:

var s = new (Function.prototype.bind.call(Something, null, a, b, c));

var s = new (Function.prototype.bind.apply(Something, [null, a, b, c]));

This and the eval-based solution are the only ones that always work, even with special constructors like Date:

var date = newCall(Date, 2012, 1);
console.log(date instanceof Date); // true

---

edit

A bit of explanation: We need to run new on a function that takes a limited number of arguments. The bind method allows us to do it like so:

var f = Cls.bind(anything, arg1, arg2, ...);
result = new f();

The anything parameter doesn't matter much, since the new keyword resets f's context. However, it is required for syntactical reasons. Now, for the bind call: We need to pass a variable number of arguments, so this does the trick:

var f = Cls.bind.apply(Cls, [anything, arg1, arg2, ...]);
result = new f();

Let's wrap that in a function. Cls is passed as arugment 0, so it's gonna be our anything.

function newCall(Cls /*, arg1, arg2, ... */) {
    var f = Cls.bind.apply(Cls, arguments);
    return new f();
}

Actually, the temporary f variable is not needed at all:

function newCall(Cls /*, arg1, arg2, ... */) {
    return new (Cls.bind.apply(Cls, arguments))();
}

Finally, we should make sure that bind is really what we need. (Cls.bind may have been overwritten). So replace it by Function.prototype.bind, and we get the final result as above.

Answer 2

Thanks to posts here I've used it this way:

SomeClass = function(arg1, arg2) {
    // ...
}

ReflectUtil.newInstance('SomeClass', 5, 7);

and implementation:

/**
 * @param strClass:
 *          class name
 * @param optionals:
 *          constructor arguments
 */
ReflectUtil.newInstance = function(strClass) {
    var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments, 1);
    var clsClass = eval(strClass);
    function F() {
        return clsClass.apply(this, args);
    }
    F.prototype = clsClass.prototype;
    return new F();
};

Answer 3

Any function (even a constructor) can take a variable number of arguments. Each function has an "arguments" variable which can be cast to an array with [].slice.call(arguments).

function Something(){
  this.options  = [].slice.call(arguments);

  this.toString = function (){
    return this.options.toString();
  };
}

var s = new Something(1, 2, 3, 4);
console.log( 's.options === "1,2,3,4":', (s.options == '1,2,3,4') );

var z = new Something(9, 10, 11);
console.log( 'z.options === "9,10,11":', (z.options == '9,10,11') );

The above tests produce the following output:

s.options === "1,2,3,4": true
z.options === "9,10,11": true

Answer 4

Here is my version of createSomething:

function createSomething() {
    var obj = {};
    obj = Something.apply(obj, arguments) || obj;
    obj.__proto__ = Something.prototype; //Object.setPrototypeOf(obj, Something.prototype); 
    return o;
}

Based on that, I tried to simulate the new keyword of JavaScript:

//JavaScript 'new' keyword simulation
function new2() {
    var obj = {}, args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments), fn = args.shift();
    obj = fn.apply(obj, args) || obj;
    Object.setPrototypeOf(obj, fn.prototype); //or: obj.__proto__ = fn.prototype;
    return obj;
}

I tested it and it seems that it works perfectly fine for all scenarios. It also works on native constructors like Date. Here are some tests:

//test
new2(Something);
new2(Something, 1, 2);

new2(Date);         //"Tue May 13 2014 01:01:09 GMT-0700" == new Date()
new2(Array);        //[]                                  == new Array()
new2(Array, 3);     //[undefined × 3]                     == new Array(3)
new2(Object);       //Object {}                           == new Object()
new2(Object, 2);    //Number {}                           == new Object(2)
new2(Object, "s");  //String {0: "s", length: 1}          == new Object("s")
new2(Object, true); //Boolean {}                          == new Object(true)

Answer 5

While the other approaches are workable, they're unduly complex. In Clojure you generally create a function that instantiates types/records and use that function as the mechanism for instantiation. Translating this to JavaScript:

function Person(surname, name){
  this.surname = surname;
  this.name = name;
}

function person(surname, name){ 
  return new Person(surname, name);
}

By taking this approach you avoid the use of new except as described above. And this function, of course, has no issues working with apply or any number of other functional programming features.

var doe  = _.partial(person, "Doe");
var john = doe("John");
var jane = doe("Jane");

By using this approach, all of your type constructors (e.g. Person) are vanilla, do-nothing constructors. You just pass in arguments and assign them to properties of the same name. The hairy details go in the constructor function (e.g. person).

It is of little bother having to create these extra constructor functions since they are a good practice anyhow. They can be convenient since they allow you to potentially have several constructor functions with different nuances.

Answer 6

function FooFactory() {
    var prototype, F = function(){};

    function Foo() {
        var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments),
            i;     
        for (i = 0, this.args = {}; i < args.length; i +=1) {
            this.args[i] = args[i];
        }
        this.bar = 'baz';
        this.print();

        return this;
    }

    prototype = Foo.prototype;
    prototype.print = function () {
        console.log(this.bar);
    };

    F.prototype = prototype;

    return Foo.apply(new F(), Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments));
}

var foo = FooFactory('a', 'b', 'c', 'd', {}, function (){});
console.log('foo:',foo);
foo.print();