Can we omit parentheses when creating an object using the "new" operator?
I have seen objects being created this way:
const obj = new Foo;
But I thought that the parentheses are not optional when creating an object:
const obj = new Foo();
Is the former way of creating objects valid and defined in the ECMAScript standard? Are there any diff开发者_如何学运维erences between the former way of creating objects and the later? Is one preferred over the other?
Quoting David Flanagan1:
As a special case, for the
new
operator only, JavaScript simplifies the grammar by allowing the parenthesis to be omitted if there are no arguments in the function call. Here are some examples using thenew
operator:o = new Object; // Optional parenthesis omitted here d = new Date(); ...
Personally, I always use the parenthesis, even when the constructor takes no arguments.
In addition, JSLint may hurt your feelings if you omit the parenthesis. It reports Missing '()' invoking a constructor
, and there doesn't seem to be an option for the tool to tolerate parenthesis omission.
1 David Flanagan: JavaScript the Definitive Guide: 4th Edition (page 75)
There are differences between the two:
new Date().toString()
works perfectly and returns the current datenew Date.toString()
throws "TypeError: Date.toString is not a constructor"
It happens because new Date()
and new Date
have different precedence. According to MDN the part of JavaScript operator precedence table we are interested in looks like:
Precedence | Operator type | Associativity | Operators |
---|---|---|---|
18 | Member Access Computed Member Access new (with argument list) |
left-to-right left-to-right n/a |
… . … … [ … ] new … ( … ) |
17 | Function Call new (without argument list) |
left-to-right right-to-left |
… ( … ) new … |
From this table follows that:
new Foo()
has higher precedence thannew Foo
new Foo()
has the same precedence as.
operatornew Foo
has one level lower precedence than the.
operatornew Date().toString()
works perfectly because it evaluates as(new Date()).toString()
new Date.toString()
throws "TypeError: Date.toString is not a constructor" because.
has higher precedence thannew Date
(and higher then "Function Call") and the expression evaluates as(new (Date.toString))()
The same logic can be applied to
… [ … ]
operator.new Foo
has right-to-left associativity and fornew Foo()
"associativity" isn't applicable. I think in practice it doesn't make any difference. For additional information see this SO question
Is one preferred over the other?
Knowing all that, it can be assumed that new Foo()
is preferred.
I don't think there is any difference when you are using the "new" operator. Be careful about getting into this habit, as these two lines of code are NOT the same:
var someVar = myFunc; // this assigns the function myFunc to someVar
var someOtherVar = myFunc(); // this executes myFunc and assigns the returned value to someOtherVar
If you do not have arguments to pass, the parentheses are optional. Omitting them is just syntactic sugar.
https://262.ecma-international.org/6.0/#sec-new-operator-runtime-semantics-evaluation
Here's the part of the ES6 spec that defines how the two variants operate. The no-parentheses variant passes an empty argument list.
Interestingly, the two forms have different grammatical meanings. This comes up when you try to access a member of the result.
new Array.length // fails because Array.length is the number 1, not a constructor
new Array().length // 0
There's no difference between the two.
精彩评论