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Saturday, May 26, 2007

JavaStrict Act III - Documentation and official 1.0 Release

My JavaScript Strict Type AS 2.0 like proposal now has a dedicated documentation page with some example code for each function or public static method too.

The big limit in this "IE yet loosing users but persists" era is that native DOM nodes aren't usable as return value or arguments on cross-browser libraries, "just" for FireFox, Safari or Opera, where each node has its specified constructor and where Window is a valid constructor too.

I'm yet waiting for your feedbacks, expecially from some Dojo Toolkit developer ... shouldn't Strict function be useful to write better code removing a lot of comments from your unpacked sources? I hope so :-)


Update 2007-05-27
Alex Russell asked me a better example to understand why JavaStrict should be a good Dojo implementation.

This is just a quick and simple example on how src/json.js file should be:

dojo.json = {

jsonRegistry: new dojo.AdapterRegistry(),

register:Strict(Void, function(name, check, wrap, override){
// ... code ...
}, [String, Function, Function, Boolean], "json.register"),

evalJson:Strict(Object, function(json){
// ... code ...
}, [String], "json.evalJson"),

serialize:Strict(String, function(o){
// ... code ...
}, [Object], "json.serialize")
};


As You can see, JavaStrict syntax, using Strict function shortcut, is not so different from Java or other languages:

returnType <== callback <== [One, Or, More, Argument, Type]


You can use JavaStrict function to compare generic instances too.
For example, if You need a function that accept at least an Object, with different type, You can compare them using one or more constructor:

doSomething = Strict(
String, function(o){

var somethingToDo;
switch(true) {
case JavaStrict(o, Array):
somethingToDo = "pop";
break;
case JavaStrict(o, String):
somethingToDo = "toUpperCase";
break;
default:
somethingToDo = "toString";
break;
};
return o[somethingToDo]();

}, [Object]
);



At this point the uniq thing that's not yet done, is this dedicated Dojo version :-)

dojo.strict = function(returnValue, callback, arguments, name){
return dojo.strict.debug ? dojo.strict.returnValue(returnValue, dojo.strict.apply(callback, arguments, name), name) : callback
};
dojo.strict.apply = function(callback, args, name){
return function(){
for(var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++){
if(!dojo.strict.check(arguments[i], args[i]))
throw new Error("[".concat(name || callback.name, "] dojo.strict arguments ", i, " Error"));
};
return callback.apply(this, arguments)
}
};
dojo.strict.call = function(){
var name = (arguments = [].slice.call(arguments)).length;
return dojo.strict.apply(arguments.shift(), arguments, dojo.strict.check(arguments[name-2], "".constructor) ? arguments.pop() : dojo.strict.Void)
};
dojo.strict.check = function(arguments, constructor){
var returnValue = constructor === dojo.strict.Void;
return arguments === dojo.strict.Void ? returnValue : (arguments === null ? !returnValue : (returnValue ? false : (dojo.strict.object ? (typeof arguments === "object" ? arguments instanceof constructor : arguments.constructor === constructor) : (constructor === Object ? true : (arguments instanceof constructor || arguments.constructor === constructor)))))
};
dojo.strict.returnValue = function(args, callback, name){
return function(){
var returnValue = callback.apply(this, arguments);
if(!dojo.strict.check(returnValue, args))
throw new Error("[".concat(name || callback.name, "] dojo.strict returnValue Error"));
return returnValue
}
};

dojo.strict.debug = true;
dojo.strict.object = false;
dojo.strict.Void = undefined;



testMe = dojo.strict(String, function(o){return o.toString()}, [Object], "testMe");
try {
alert(testMe(dojo)); // Ok
alert(testMe(dojo.strict)); // Ok
alert(testMe(dojo.strict.Void)); // Error
}
catch(e) {
alert(e);
};

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

the beauty of javascript is that is not type-strict, this means you can
write duck type functions,
but for the most I believe that the best point in a framework is the consistency

so yes, probably it could be a good tool for writing test suites(that can be leave out once the develop is end)
but i don't think it has to be implemented in core, because it would mean loose all the powerfullness of js.
KM

Anonymous said...

Very nice idea... If i'm not mistaken, Mozilla has plans on implementing strict-typing in upcoming JS2.0, but before that happens... thanks for sharing your imlpementation