Use of .apply() with 'new' operator. Is this possible?

user_165716 0
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In JavaScript, I want to create an object instance (via the new operator), but pass an arbitrary number of arguments to the constructor. Is this possible?

What I want to do is something like this (but the code below does not work):

function Something(){
    // init stuff
}
function createSomething(){
    return new Something.apply(null, arguments);
}
var s = createSomething(a,b,c); // 's' is an instance of Something

The Answer

From the responses here, it became clear that there's no built-in way to call .apply() with the new operator. However, people suggested a number of really interesting solutions to the problem.

My preferred solution was this one from Matthew Crumley (I've modified it to pass the arguments property):

var createSomething = (function() {
    function F(args) {
        return Something.apply(this, args);
    }
    F.prototype = Something.prototype;

    return function() {
        return new F(arguments);
    }
})();
inheritance class constructor oop javascript
36 Answers

While the other approaches are workable, they're unduly complex. In Clojure you generally create a function that instantiates types/records and use that function as the mechanism for instantiation. Translating this to JavaScript:

function Person(surname, name){
  this.surname = surname;
  this.name = name;
}

function person(surname, name){ 
  return new Person(surname, name);
}

By taking this approach you avoid the use of new except as described above. And this function, of course, has no issues working with apply or any number of other functional programming features.

var doe  = _.partial(person, "Doe");
var john = doe("John");
var jane = doe("Jane");

By using this approach, all of your type constructors (e.g. Person) are vanilla, do-nothing constructors. You just pass in arguments and assign them to properties of the same name. The hairy details go in the constructor function (e.g. person).

It is of little bother having to create these extra constructor functions since they are a good practice anyhow. They can be convenient since they allow you to potentially have several constructor functions with different nuances.

user_253580

Make an anonymous prototype and apply the Something prototype to it using the arguments and then create a new instance of that anonymous prototype. The one disadavantage of this is it will not pass the s instanceof Something check, though it is identical, it is basically an instance of a clone.

function Something(){
    // init stuff
}
function createSomething(){
    return new (function(){Something.apply(this, arguments)});
}
var s = createSomething(a,b,c); // 's' is an instance of Something
user_20821410
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