Get the name of an object's type

Question

Is there a JavaScript equivalent of Java\'s class.getName()?

Answer 1

Update

To be precise, I think OP asked for a function that retrieves the constructor name for a particular object. In terms of Javascript, object does not have a type but is a type of and in itself. However, different objects can have different constructors.

Object.prototype.getConstructorName = function () {
   var str = (this.prototype ? this.prototype.constructor : this.constructor).toString();
   var cname = str.match(/function\s(\w*)/)[1];
   var aliases = ["", "anonymous", "Anonymous"];
   return aliases.indexOf(cname) > -1 ? "Function" : cname;
}

new Array().getConstructorName();  // returns "Array"
(function () {})().getConstructorName(); // returns "Function"

 

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Note: the below example is deprecated.

A blog post linked by Christian Sciberras contains a good example on how to do it. Namely, by extending the Object prototype:

if (!Object.prototype.getClassName) {
    Object.prototype.getClassName = function () {
        return Object.prototype.toString.call(this).match(/^\[object\s(.*)\]$/)[1];
    }
}

var test = [1,2,3,4,5];

alert(test.getClassName()); // returns Array