GNU ease.js Manual v0.2.8: Static Members

2.3 Static Members

Static members do not require instantiation of the containing class in order to be used, but may also be called by instances. They are attached to the class itself rather than an instance. Static members provide convenience under certain circumstances where class instantiation is unnecessary and permit sharing data between instances of a class. However, static members, when used improperly, can produce poorly designed classes and tightly coupled code that is also difficult to test. Static properties also introduce problems very similar to global variables.

Let us consider an implementation of the factory pattern. Class BigBang will declare two static methods in order to satisfy different means of instantiation: fromBraneCollision() and fromBigCrunch() (for the sake of the example, we’re not going to address every theory). Let us also consider that we want to keep track of the number of big bangs in our universe (perhaps to study whether or not a "Big Crunch" could have potentially happened in the past) by incrementing a counter each time a new big bang occurs. Because we are using a static method, we cannot use a property of an instance in order to store this data. Therefore, we will use a static property of class BigBang.

    var BigBang = Class( 'BigBang',
    {
        /**
         * Number of big bangs that has occurred
         * @type {number}
         */
        'private static _count': 0,

        /**
         * String representing the type of big bang
         * @type {string}
         */
        'private _type': '',


        /**
         * Create a new big bang from the collision of two membranes
         *
         * @return  {BraneSet}  the set of branes that collided
         *
         * @return  {BigBang}  new big bang
         */
        'public static fromBraneCollision': function( brane_set )
        {
            // do initialization tasks...

            return BigBang( 'brane', brane_set.getData() );
        },


        /**
         * Create a new big bang following a "Big Crunch"
         *
         * @param  {BigCrunch}  prior crunch
         *
         * @return  {BigBang}  new big bang
         */
        'public static fromBigCrunch': function( crunch )
        {
            // do initialization tasks...

            return BigBang( 'crunch', crunch.getData() );
        },


        /**
         * Returns the total number of big bangs that have occurred
         *
         * @return  {number}  total number of big bangs
         */
        'public static getTotalCount': function()
        {
            return this.$('_count');
        }


        /**
         * Construct a new big bang
         *
         * @param  {string}  type  big bang type
         * @param  {object}  data  initialization data
         *
         * @return  {undefined}
         */
        __construct: function( type, data )
        {
            this._type = type;

            // do complicated stuff with data

            // increment big bang count
            this.__self.$( '_count',
                this.__self.$('count') + 1
            );
        },
    } );

    // create one of each
    var brane_bang  = BigBang.fromBraneCollision( branes ),
        crunch_bang = BigBang.fromBigCrunch( crunch_incident );

    console.log( "Total number of big bangs: %d", BigBang.getTotalCount() );
    // Total number of big bangs: 2

Figure 2.25: Static member example using the factory pattern

Due to limitations of pre-ECMAScript 5 implementations, ease.js’s static implementation must be broken into two separate parts: properties and methods.

• Static Methods:
• Static Properties:
• Constants:		Immutable static properties

easejs

Classical Object-Oriented Framework

2.3 Static Members