Initialising an object with dynamic name - coffeescript/node.js/javaScript

Question

I am attempting to build a plugin system where I do not know the plugins beforehand. Initialising an object using 'require' from browserify. As follows:

class.coffee:

   class MyClass
    name: "my-class"
    constructor: ->

    @getName: ->
        return @name

  exports.plugin = new MyClass

Then from the calling file I have:

pluginName = # from a config file
{ plugin } = require './#{pluginName}.coffee'
console.log plugin
console.log plugin.getName()

The first logger call gives me:

MyClass{ name="my-class" }

The second one fails however with plugin.getName is not a function.

Any help/guidance appreciated. I'm not a JS developer and am new to coffeescript/node.js as well.

Thanks.

Answer 1

You should not have the @ before getName .

Having the @ is equivalent to this in JS

MyClass.getName = function(){
  return this.name;
};

But in this case, getName is a function on the class itself, not the MyClass instance.

Without the @ , like this, getName: -> the JS is like this:

MyClass.prototype.getName = function(){
  return this.name;
}