This post describes a standalone way to add class inheritance in your javascript code. We will do that ala vapor.js, so no dependancy or external framework. A vaporjs inheritance is only 3 lines!

Lets get started, say you got a class animal. It gonna have a constructor and a method talk.

var Animal = function(opts){}
Animal.prototype.talk   = function(){ return 'mumble';  }
Animal.prototype.sleep  = function(){ return 'zzzzz';   }

How to write the inheritance

Now let write a Cat class which inherits from Animal. It will override the animal method talk.

var Cat = function(opts){
    // call the parent class constructor (one line)
    Animal.call(this, opts)
}

// inherit from Animal methods (two lines)
Cat.prototype = new Animal();
Cat.prototype.constructor = Animal;

// override talk method
Cat.prototype.talk = function(){
    return "maow"
}

So a vaporjs inheritance is only 3 lines!

Lets test methods override

Now lets test the result of all this

var cat = new Cat()
console.log("cat sleep as ", cat.sleep());
console.log("cat talk as ", cat.talk());

This will display

cat sleep as zzzzz
cat talk as maow

So .talk() is actually overridden, and .sleep() is properly passed to the parent class Animal.

Lets test instanceOf semantic

Last but not least, the instanceOf operator which is so important for javascript

console.log("Cat instanceof Cat", cat instanceof Cat);
console.log("Cat instanceof Animal", cat instanceof Animal);

will display

Cat instanceof Cat true
Cat instanceof Animal true

So cat object is an instance of the class Cat and of the class Animal which is the good semantic for instanceOf.

That’s all folks. have fun.