Call static methods from regular ES6 class methods

Question

What\'s the standard way to call static methods? I can think of using constructor or using the name of the class itself, I don\'t like the latter since it doesn

Answer 1

If you are planning on doing any kind of inheritance, then I would recommend this.constructor. This simple example should illustrate why:

class ConstructorSuper {
  constructor(n){
    this.n = n;
  }

  static print(n){
    console.log(this.name, n);
  }

  callPrint(){
    this.constructor.print(this.n);
  }
}

class ConstructorSub extends ConstructorSuper {
  constructor(n){
    this.n = n;
  }
}

let test1 = new ConstructorSuper("Hello ConstructorSuper!");
console.log(test1.callPrint());

let test2 = new ConstructorSub("Hello ConstructorSub!");
console.log(test2.callPrint());

• test1.callPrint() will log ConstructorSuper Hello ConstructorSuper! to the console
• test2.callPrint() will log ConstructorSub Hello ConstructorSub! to the console

The named class will not deal with inheritance nicely unless you explicitly redefine every function that makes a reference to the named Class. Here is an example:

class NamedSuper {
  constructor(n){
    this.n = n;
  }

  static print(n){
    console.log(NamedSuper.name, n);
  }

  callPrint(){
    NamedSuper.print(this.n);
  }
}

class NamedSub extends NamedSuper {
  constructor(n){
    this.n = n;
  }
}

let test3 = new NamedSuper("Hello NamedSuper!");
console.log(test3.callPrint());

let test4 = new NamedSub("Hello NamedSub!");
console.log(test4.callPrint());

• test3.callPrint() will log NamedSuper Hello NamedSuper! to the console
• test4.callPrint() will log NamedSuper Hello NamedSub! to the console

See all the above running in Babel REPL.

You can see from this that test4 still thinks it's in the super class; in this example it might not seem like a huge deal, but if you are trying to reference member functions that have been overridden or new member variables, you'll find yourself in trouble.