bear-utilities

Bear Utilities

A library containing an assortment of features that facilitate and enhance the JavaScript language.

Type-Checking

Bear Utilities adds runtime type-checking in a clean and composable way.

const sum = (a, b) => typeMatch(a, Number) + typeMatch(b, Number);

// Prints 3.
console.log(sum(1, 2));

// Prints an error and exits.
console.log(sum("1", 2));

Types can be as simple or as complex as the user needs them to be.

const createStringKeyMap = arr => {
    // `arr` must be an array of arrays, each of which are length 2 and have an initial value of type String.
    typeMatch(arr, [Tuple(String, Any)]);
    return new Map(arr);
};

// Prints a new map.
console.log(createStringKeyMap([
    ["First", 1],
    ["Second", 2]
]));

// Prints an error and exits. `2` is not of type String.
console.log(createStringKeyMap([
    ["First", 2],
    [2, 2],
]));

Conveniences

Bear Utilities offers many convenient features to help write simpler code.

These include Array.random(), Array.sum(), and String.replaceAt().

Functions that modify builtin prototypes can often cause issues between libraries, so to prevent this, it is required to run allowModification() before any of those functions are added.

allowModification(Array);

const arr1 = [1, 2, 3];

// Print a random number from among 1, 2, or 3.
console.log(arr1.random());

// Print the sum of the three numbers (I.E. `6`)
console.log(arr1.sum());

// Print the average of the three numbers (I.E. `2`).
console.log(arr1.average());

Function Modification

Some functions useful for adding properties to other functions are included, such as nonVariadic and memoize.

const sum = nonVariadic((a, b) => typeMatch(a, Number) + typeMatch(b, Number));

// The following line of code is valid.
console.log(sum(20, 40));

// The following line of code will throw an error for including an extraneous parameter.
console.log(sum(20, 40, 50));

Data Types

Bear Utilities offers new data types, such as Tag, Enum, Union, and Entity.

These choices allow programmers to represent data in a manner more suited to any particular scenario.

For example, Entities allow users to implement features in a more composable manner than the standard oop style, while still maintaining the ability to use features such as class-inheritance like normal. Users of FP languages will recognize them as very similar to typeclasses.

class Animal extends Entity {
    constructor(name, age) {
        super();
        this.name = typeMatch(name, String);
        this.age = typeMatch(age, Natural);
    }
}

const Woofs = new Category("Woofs", [
    function woof() {
        console.log("Woof!");
    }
]);

Animal.impl(Woofs);

const spot = new Animal("Spot", 14);

// Print "Spot"
console.log(spot.name);

// Print "Woof!"
spot.woof();

Maybe is a built-in Union useful for handling the null case.

// This is "Just" the value 20.
const value1 = Just(20);

// This checks as a `Maybe(Natural)` because 20 is a `Natural` and the `Just` function wraps a value in a Maybe.
typeMatch(value1, Maybe(Natural));

// Prints `Just(20)`
console.log(value1.toString());