(Part of the “12 Powerful JavaScript Tips” Series)
Prerequisites:
— Understand JavaScript’s “this” With Ease
— JavaScript Objects in Detail
Chaining Methods, also known as Cascading, refers to repeatedly calling one method after another on an object, in one continuous line of code. This technique abounds in jQuery and other JavaScript libraries and it is even common in some JavaScript native methods.
of Programming and Futuristic Engineering
Writing code like this:
$("#wrapper").fadeOut().html("Welcome, Sir").fadeIn();or this:
str.replace("k", "R").toUpperCase().substr(0,4); is not just pleasurable and convenient but also succinct and intelligible. It allows us to read code like a sentence, flowing gracefully across the page. It also frees us from the monotonous, blocky structures we usually construct.
We will spend the next 20 minutes learning to create expressive code using this cascading technique. To use cascading, we have to return this (the object we want subsequent methods to operate on) in each method. Let’s quickly learn the details and get back to eating, or watching YouTube videos, or reading Hacker News, or working and browsing, or working and focusing.
Let’s create all of our “chainable” code within an object, along with a local data store. Note that in a real-world app we will likely store the data in a database, but here we are just saving it in a variable.
// The data store:
var usersData = [
{firstName: "tommy", lastName: "MalCom", email: "test@test.com", id: 102},
{firstName: "Peter", lastName: "breCht", email: "test2@test2.com", id: 103},
{firstName: "RoHan", lastName: "sahu", email: "test3@test3.com", id: 104}
];
// A quick utility function that does what it says:
function titleCaseName(str) {
return str.replace(/\w\S*/g, function (txt) {
return txt.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + txt.substr(1).toLowerCase();
});
}
// Our object with the chainable methods
var userController = {
currentUser: "",
findUser: function (userEmail) {
var arrayLength = usersData.length, i;
for (i = arrayLength - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
if (usersData[i].email === userEmail) {
this.currentUser = usersData[i];
break;
}
}
return this;
},
formatName: function () {
if (this.currentUser) {
this.currentUser.fullName = titleCaseName(this.currentUser.firstName) + " " + titleCaseName(this.currentUser.lastName);
}
return this;
},
createLayout: function () {
if (this.currentUser) {
this.currentUser.viewData = "<h2>Member: " + this.currentUser.fullName + "</h2>"
+ "<p>ID: " + this.currentUser.id + "</p>" + "<p>Email: " + this.currentUser.email + "</p>";
}
return this;
},
displayUser: function () {
if (!this.currentUser) return;
$(".members-wrapper").append(this.currentUser.viewData);
}
};With our chainable methods defined, we can now execute our expressive code like this (just like it is done in jQuery):
userController.findUser("test2@test2.com").formatName()
.createLayout().displayUser();Here is the result on JSBin:
http://jsbin.com/erewat/1/edit
Why Use Cascading in JavaScript?
-
There is no need to create temporary variables to save each step of the process. For example, without chaining, our code will look like this:
var aUser = userController.findUser("test@test.com"); var formatUserName = aUser.formatName(); var layoutHTML = formatUserName.createLayout(); userController.displayUser(layoutHTML); - Now, every line of code clearly and succinctly expresses what it is doing, particularly when the name of each method is defined using verbs.
- Our code is more maintainable because we have simple, lean, specialized methods.
- Overall, one can easily read the “chainable” code, effortlessly type it, and comfortably understand it.
How Does Chaining Methods Work in JavaScript?
When each method returns this, the entire object that called the method is returned. The execution proceeds thus:
// Use the userController object to execute the findUser method
userController.findUser("test@testdd.com")Because we are executing the findUser method on the userController object, and because the findUser method returns “this” (the object that invoked it), the entire userController object is returned and passed to the next method in the chain, since the “this” keyword in findUser holds the value of the object that invoked it.
Therefore, this occurs next:
userController.formatName();Similarly, the formatName method returns the userController object, so expectedly, this follows:
userController.createLayout();Followed by:
<script>
userController.displayUser();Each step of the way, we are returning the userController object and invoking methods on it.
Final Words
This was probably the shortest post I have written so far. I am hopeful it is just as informative as the others and you will start using cascading to make your JavaScript code more expressive and beautiful.
As always, if you see any bugs, typos, or grammar mistakes, please notify me promptly.
Be good. Sleep well. And enjoy coding.
of Programming and Futuristic Engineering
Thanks for this. I always wnat to know how jQuery did chaining. It is beautiful stuff :).
You are welcome, Mattheu. I am always happy to hear when the articles are helpful.
Thanks Richard, very clear explanation.
Thanks to share! This is very useful!
Chaining is cool… but just make sure you understand how things will behave if one of the functions needs to throw an error…
Thanks for your input, Steve. I guess I should add that bit to the post. I will do that.
Thanks a lot. But in fact, if you write to much chain, it will be hard to maintenance.
Here’s another brief article on how to achieve chaining.
http://goo.gl/z0qNB6
Thanks for sharing. Very well written.
Really helpful
It’s really good
Hi Richard,
how are you?
First, I’m obliged to say that you are a really good teacher, and I don’t say this lightly: I’ve been to thousands of classes in my life and most teachers are crap, so you have a rare talent.
I’m a beginner at this game and I have a beginner’s question that I hope you may answer.
I’ve build this simple object and it worked fine with a small external array, but when I tried to use it with an array generated by a DOM document method it failed.
Here is the dom method that should generate the array to be used as a variable in the object:
var eleArray = document.getElementById(div).getElementsByTagName(ele);
And here’s the object:
var normalizeDots = {
dotArray: [ ],
stringDots: “.”,
searchArrays: function () {
for (i = 0; i < eleArray.length; i++) {
this.dotArray.push(eleArray[i].match(/[.]/g));
}
return this;
},
displayResult: function () {
alert(this.dotArray[2].length);
}
}
What I've been able to see is that the array variable is generated but it doesn't seem to be available to the object. How can I solve this?
thanks in advance
Very useful tricks. Thanks! =]
I started using this technique in a C++ program I work on. When I created a new error container it made a lot of sense to do it this way as it allowed me to build the object in a clear and concise way in a single line of code.
but here we are just saving it a variable <—–
and
userController.displayUser();
No need for the orphaned tag
Thanks for the post..!!
Really very helpful. Did not thought that chaining implementation will be this much easy… very nice post
This is very informative, clear and concise .
Hi,
As of now I got through almost all of your articles and have learned sooo much more than I used thourgh a single book.
I’m so greatful for that. But Its been almost a year I haven’t seen any new articles… .Did you stop writing?
Regards
Thanks for sharing. Nice to know more about ‘this’ and JS cascading.
Comment form not labeled – which is name, which is email. Test.
Thank you for a nice, clear exploration of this. I’m ambivalent about method chaining though. If you are the sole developer or part of a small team, masters of your domain, then it allows you to create succinct and tidy code. But it relies on the implicit assumption that each method in the chain returns “this” – the “intelligibility” of the code is reliant entirely on that assumption. If you’re creating the code and maintaining it yourselves, then great.
The problem for a subsequent developer who may inherit your code in a support role a few years down the line is that they will have to inspect your code to see what is being returned by each method in the chain to ensure that indeed “this” is being returned and that the chain is doing what on face value they would expect, ie chaining. A perverted or annoying developer could easily make a method at some point in the chain return something other than “this” so that subsequent function calls in the chain are no longer operating on the initial object.
Client side code needs to be bandwidth-light and in that environment chaining makes perfect sense. But if you are writing server-side JS which is likely to be maintained by other people, probably support people without in depth knowledge of the code, the golden rule is clarity, even at the expense of brevity. If I had a dollar for every time that someone who thought that terseness was the same as simplicity, and subsequently created code that looked nice but which was error-prone for the unwary to maintain, I’d be a wealthy man.
Thanks for a short and sweet post, Richard!
Sorry to be *that* guy, but your code is FAAAAAAR from beautiful or clear!
$(“#wrapper”).fadeOut().html(“Welcome, Sir”).fadeIn();
I feel like i’m taking crazy pills! My brain has to work to read that. It’s a novelty to pack so much action into one line, but it fails hopelessly on the clear and beautiful front. Chaining is great but certainly does not equate directly to more beautiful or clear code. Seperating chains by line helps a bit though as in:
var thing = new UIThing();
thing
.setParent(blah)
.moveTo(x, y)
.setSize(100, 100);
No! There is so much more to this. It’s not gonna be a simple bunch of steps in the same way painting by numbers doesn’t turn you into Picasso. It IS an art form in itself. My search continues..
Just my 2 cents.
Here is another easier tutorial on chaining – for beginners
http://schier.co/blog/2013/11/14/method-chaining-in-javascript.html
Really, really great article and content on the site overall. I’ve been digging deeper into JS and jQuery in recent weeks and this really helps me understand both a bit better and how I can use methods similar to jQuery in a more native way.
Hi Richard,
After reading this post, I tried to animate using chaining, just like jQuery. My code isn’t working as expected. What did I miss?
HTML –
CSS – #mickeyBlock {
width: 80px;
height: 80px;
background: #a23;
border-radius: 4px;
transition: all 1s;
}
JS –
var block = document.getElementById(‘mickeyBlock’);
var animateBlock = {
currentBlock: block,
move: function(distance) {
this.currentBlock.style.transform = “translate(” + distance + “)”;
return this;
}
}
animateBlock.move(‘300px’).move(‘-20px’);