In javascript, can I declare properties of an object to be constant?
Here is an example object:
var XU = {
Cc: Components.classes
};
<
If you are using Javascript 1.5 (in XUL for example), you can use the const
keyword instead of var
to declare a constant.
The problem is that it cannot be a property of an object. You can try to limit its scope by namespacing it inside a function.
(function(){
const XUL_CC = Components.classes;
// Use the constant here
})()
To define a constant property, you could set the writable attribute to false in the defineProperty method as shown below:
Code snippet:
var XU = {};
Object.defineProperty(XU, 'Cc', {
value: 5,
writable: false
});
XU.Cc = 345;
console.log(XU.Cc);
Result:
5 # The value hasn't changed
UPDATE: This works!
const FIXED_VALUE = 37;
FIXED_VALUE = 43;
alert(FIXED_VALUE);//alerts "37"
Technically I think the answer is no (Until const makes it into the wild). You can provide wrappers and such, but when it all boils down to it, you can redefine/reset the variable value at any time.
The closest I think you'll get is defining a "constant" on a "class".
// Create the class
function TheClass(){
}
// Create the class constant
TheClass.THE_CONSTANT = 42;
// Create a function for TheClass to alert the constant
TheClass.prototype.alertConstant = function(){
// You can’t access it using this.THE_CONSTANT;
alert(TheClass.THE_CONSTANT);
}
// Alert the class constant from outside
alert(TheClass.THE_CONSTANT);
// Alert the class constant from inside
var theObject = new TheClass();
theObject.alertConstant();
However, the "class" TheClass itself can be redefined later on
Since you only need it to work on the Mozilla platform, you can define a getter with no corresponding setter. The best way to do it is different for each of your examples.
var XU = {
get Cc() { return Components.classes; }
};
In your second exampe, you can use the __defineGetter__
method to add it to either aXU.prototype
or to this
inside the constructor. Which way is better depends on whether the value is different for each instance of the object.
Edit: To help with the readability problem, you could write a function like defineConstant
to hide the uglyness.
function defineConstant(obj, name, value) {
obj.__defineGetter__(name, function() { return value; });
}
Also, if you want to throw an error if you try to assign to it, you can define a setter that just throws an Error object:
function defineConstant(obj, name, value) {
obj.__defineGetter__(name, function() { return value; });
obj.__defineSetter__(name, function() {
throw new Error(name + " is a constant");
});
}
function aXU() {
}
defineConstant(aXU.prototype, "Cc", Components.classes);
function aXU() {
// Cc_value could be different for each instance
var Cc_value = return Components.classes;
defineConstant(this, "Cc", Cc_value);
}
For more details, you can read the Mozilla Developer Center documentation.