Why cannot use lambda to define prototype function

user_3450755 0
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Can someone please explain why defining a prototype function with lambda expression doesn't work? I thought this must be asked before but couldn't find it. 

function Book(title, year) {
    this.title = title;
    this.year = year;

    // define a function within the object, which works fine
    this.printYear = () => console.log("instance function of an object: " + this.year);
}

this doesn't work

Book.prototype.printTitle2 = () => {
        console.log(this.title);
    }

and this is fine of course:

Book.prototype.printTitle = function() {
         console.log(this);
         console.log(this.title);
    }
lambda javascript
3 Answers

In addition to @t-j-crowder's answer, I wanted to leave a test case (mocha assert) which you can use to visualize which is not working.

Also you can read more about the scope of arrow functions here: You Don't Know JS by Kyle Simpson, who explains this in detail.

Basically, an arrow function's this points to the surrounding context of the current context, which comes in handy if you have enclosing functions. What it does is basically doing the var self = this; thing.

Or as Kyle says:

[...] Lexical this in the arrow function callback in the previous snippet now points to the same value as in the enclosing makeRequest(..) function. In other words, => is a syntactic stand-in for var self = this.

In cases where var self = this (or, alternatively, a function .bind(this) call) would normally be helpful, => arrow functions are a nicer alternative operating on the same principle. [...]

You can test it yourself with my gist: https://gist.github.com/jay-bricksoft/96738dd8a48ceb9f517e914b834cc1ee

In my test case this was the output:

Lambda
    function(){}
      √ should equal function´s type
      1) should have equal context as function
      2) should be able to be used as constructor
  1 passing (39ms)
  2 failing
  1) Lambda function(){} should have equal context as function:
      AssertionError: 'undefined' == 'string'
      + expected - actual
      -undefined
      +string

      at Context.<anonymous> (test\index.js:29:14)
  2) Lambda function(){} should be able to be used as constructor:
     TypeError: construct_l is not a constructor
      at Context.<anonymous> (test\index.js:34:20)

EDIT: added example / reference to Kyle Simpson's "You Don't Know ES6" https://github.com/getify/You-Dont-Know-JS/tree/master/es6%20%26%20beyond

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