Cannot assign to read only property 'name' of object '[object Object]'

Question

The following code will throw an error only for the name property. It could be fixed by specifying name property as writable in Object.create

Answer 1

You cannot modify the name property of a function. The descriptor says it is not writable...

var BaseClass = function (data) {
  Object.assign(this, data);
};

console.log(Object.getOwnPropertyDescriptor(BaseClass, 'name'));

But since it is configurable, you could use Object.defineProperty().

var BaseClass = function (data) {
  Object.assign(this, data);
};

Object.defineProperty(BaseClass, 'name', {
  writable: true,
  value: 'Foo'
});

console.log(BaseClass.name);

---

EDIT

I'm back! So... As I said previously in comments, I think I have identified your problem. I answered a bit too fast and did not see that your ES5 inheritance is wrong.

ExtendedClass.prototype = Object.create(BaseClass); is not what you want to do. Doing so means the prototype of ExtendedClass becomes a constructor function. This obviously generates an unexpected behavior.

function BaseClass(data) {
  console.log(this instanceof BaseClass); // "this" is not an instance of "BaseClass"
  console.log(this instanceof Function); // "this" is a function
  console.log(this.name); // "this" is "BaseClass"
  
  Object.assign(this, data);
}

function ExtendedClass() {
  BaseClass.apply(this, arguments);
}
ExtendedClass.prototype = Object.create(BaseClass);

new ExtendedClass({ type: 'foo' });

In your code, this is a function and refers to BaseClass. That is why you are not allowed to modify its name...

In fact, when working with inheritance in JavaScript, you generally need these two lines:

ExtendedClass.prototype = Object.create(BaseClass.prototype);
ExtendedClass.prototype.constructor = ExtendedClass;

Here is a valid implementation:

function BaseClass(data) {
  console.log(this instanceof BaseClass); // "this" is an instance of "BaseClass"
  console.log(this instanceof Function); // "this" is not a function
  console.log(this.name); // "this" has no name yet
  
  Object.assign(this, data);
}

function ExtendedClass() {
  BaseClass.apply(this, arguments);
}
ExtendedClass.prototype = Object.create(BaseClass.prototype);
ExtendedClass.prototype.constructor = ExtendedClass;

var instance = new ExtendedClass({ name: 'foo' });

console.log(instance.name); // foo
console.log(BaseClass.name); // BaseClass
console.log(ExtendedClass.name); // ExtendedClass