extend-me

extend-me

Yet another Backbone-like class extender

Synopsis

Node.js:

var Base = require('extend-me').Base;

Browser:

<script src="http://joneit.github.io/extend-me/extend-me.min.js"></script>

Usage:

var MyClass = Base.extend({
    initialize: function () { ... },
    member1: ...,
    member2: ...
};

var MyChildClass = MyClass.extend({
    initialize: function () { /* called after base class's initialize() */ },
    member1: ..., // overrides base class's definition of member1
    member3: ...
};

Example

var Parabola = Base.extend({
    initialize: function (a, b) {
        this.a = a;
        this.b = b;
    },
    calculate: function(x) {
        return this.a * Math.pow(x, 2) + (this.b * x);
    }
});

var ParabolaWithIntercept = Parabola.extend({
    initialize: function(a, b, c) {
        this.c = c;
    },
    calculate: function(x) {
        var y = Parabola.prototype.calculate.apply(this, arguments);
        return y + this.c;
    }
});

var parabola = new ParabolaWithIntercept(3, 2, 1),
    y = ParabolaWithIntercept(-3); // yields 22

Constructors

The initialize methods at each level of inheritance are the constructors. Instantiating a derived class will automatically call initialize on all ancestor classes that implement it, starting with the most distant ancestor all the way to and including the derived class in question. Each initialize method is called with the same parameters passed to the constructor.

If you intend to instantiate the base class (Parabola in the above) directly (i.e., it is not "abstract"), include the following in the constructor:

function Parabola() {
    this.initialize.apply(this, arguments);
}

To add initialization code to be executed before or after this chain of initialize calls, you an define methods preInitialize and postInitialize.

API documentation

Detailed API docs can be found here.

Demo

A demo can be found here.

CDN versions

To use in a browser, you have two options:

1. Incorporate the node module into your own browserified project.
2. Use the browserified versions extend-me.js or extend-me.min.js available on the Github pages CDN.

Submodules

See the note Regarding submodules for important information on cloning this repo or re-purposing its build template.