JavaScript private methods

Question

To make a JavaScript class with a public method I\'d do something like:

function Restaurant() {}

Restaurant.prototype.buy_food = function(){
   // something         


        

Answer 1

The module pattern is right in most cases. But if you have thousands of instances, classes save memory. If saving memory is a concern and your objects contain a small amount of private data, but have a lot of public functions, then you'll want all public functions to live in the .prototype to save memory.

This is what I came up with:

var MyClass = (function () {
    var secret = {}; // You can only getPriv() if you know this
    function MyClass() {
        var that = this, priv = {
            foo: 0 // ... and other private values
        };
        that.getPriv = function (proof) {
            return (proof === secret) && priv;
        };
    }
    MyClass.prototype.inc = function () {
        var priv = this.getPriv(secret);
        priv.foo += 1;
        return priv.foo;
    };
    return MyClass;
}());
var x = new MyClass();
x.inc(); // 1
x.inc(); // 2

The object priv contains private properties. It is accessible through the public function getPriv(), but this function returns false unless you pass it the secret, and this is only known inside the main closure.