Best way to implement Javascript chaining in a library

Question

I'm creating a JavaScript library. I've been trying to implement chaining.

0: What I first came up with:

function V(p) {
  return {
    add : function(addend) { return V(p + addend); },
    sub : function(subtra) { return V(p - subtra); },
  };
}

Using this method I can chain easily:

V(3).add(7).sub(5) // V(5)

Unfortunately the result is always a wrapped V() function, I am unable to extract the resulting value this way. So I thought about this problem a bit and came up with two semi-solutions.

1: Passing flag to last method

function V(p, flag) {
  if(flag)
    return p;
  else
    return {
      add : function(addend, flag) { return V(p + addend, flag); },
      sub : function(subtra, flag) { return V(p - subtra, flag); }
    };
}

Using this method I can end the chain by passing a flag to the last method I use:

V(3).add(7).sub(5, true) // 5

While this works just fine, it requires some code repetition and makes chaining less readable and my code less elegant.

2: Using start() and end() methods

_chain = false;
function V(p) {
  function Wrap(w) {
    return (_chain) ? V(w) : w;
  }
  return {
    add : function(addend) { return Wrap(p + addend); },
    sub : function(subtra) { return Wrap(p - subtra); },
    start : function() { _chain = true; },
    end : function() { _chain = false; return p; }
  };
}

Using this method you can do single operations with no more code:

V(3).add(7) // 10

But chaining requires two more methods, making things a lot less readable:

V(3).start().add(7).sub(5).end() // 5

So basically I'm just searching for the best way to implement chaining into my library. Ideally I'm looking for something where I can use any number of methods and don't need to terminate the chain in inelegant ways.

V(3).add(7).sub(5) // 5, perfect chaining

Answer 1

Why not introducing a private variable and working on that ? I guess that is even more convinient. Plus it's probably a good idea to have a pure "getter" which finally returns the computed value. This could look like:

function V(p) {
    var value = p;

    return {
        add : function(addend) { value += addend; return this; },
        sub : function(subtra) { value -= subtra; return this; },
        get : function() { return value; }
    };
}

V(5).add(7).sub(5).get();  // 5

You cannot return the Object in a getter function obviously. So you need some method where the chaining ends and returns a value.

Answer 2

In some cases it does need to have something similar to end , but in your simple arithmetic example, it does not.

function V(initial_val){
  if(!(this instanceof V)){
    return new V(initial_val);
  }

  var num = initial_val || 0;

  this.set = function(val){
    num = val;
    return this;
  }
  this.add = function(val){
    num += val;
    return this;
  }
  this.sub = function(val){
    num -= val;
    return this;
  }
  this.valueOf = function(){
    return num;
  }
  this.toString = function(){
    return ""+num;
  }
}

By adding valueOf and toString functions to the object, you can access its primitive value. That is, you can do something like:

var num = V(0).add(1).sub(2), another_num = 3 + num; // num = -1 and another_num = 2;

Answer 3

I would amend Haochi's excellent answer as follows :

Using the prototype will be more efficient if you have many V objects and in the toString function I invoke the generic number toString with whatever arguments you care to give it.

function V (n) {
  if (!(this instanceof V)) {
    return new V (n);
  }

  this.num = +n || 0;
  return this;
}

V.prototype = {
  set: function (val) {
    this.num = val;
    return this;
  },
  add: function (val) {
    this.num += val;
    return this;
  },
  sub: function (val) {
    this.num -= val;
    return this;
  },
  valueOf: function () {
    return this.num;
  },
  toString: function () {
    return this.num.toString.apply (this.num, arguments);
  }
}