Emulate super in javascript

Question

Basically is there a good elegant mechanism to emulate super with syntax that is as simple as one of the following

• this.$super.prop()

Answer 1

Note that for the following implementation, when you are inside a method that is invoked via $super, access to properties while working in the parent class never resolve to the child class's methods or variables, unless you access a member that is stored directly on the object itself (as opposed to attached to the prototype). This avoids a slew of confusion (read as subtle bugs).

Update: Here is an implementation that works without __proto__. The catch is that using $super is linear in the number of properties the parent object has.

function extend (Child, prototype, /*optional*/Parent) {
    if (!Parent) {
        Parent = Object;
    }
    Child.prototype = Object.create(Parent.prototype);
    Child.prototype.constructor = Child;
    for (var x in prototype) {
        if (prototype.hasOwnProperty(x)) {
            Child.prototype[x] = prototype[x];
        }
    }
    Child.prototype.$super = function (propName) {
        var prop = Parent.prototype[propName];
        if (typeof prop !== "function") {
            return prop;
        }
        var self = this;
        return function () {
            var selfPrototype = self.constructor.prototype;
            var pp = Parent.prototype;
            for (var x in pp) {
                self[x] = pp[x];
            }
            try {
                return prop.apply(self, arguments);
            }
            finally {
                for (var x in selfPrototype) {
                    self[x] = selfPrototype[x];
                }
            }
        };
    };
}

The following implementation is for browsers that support the __proto__ property:

function extend (Child, prototype, /*optional*/Parent) {
    if (!Parent) {
        Parent = Object;
    }
    Child.prototype = Object.create(Parent.prototype);
    Child.prototype.constructor = Child;
    for (var x in prototype) {
        if (prototype.hasOwnProperty(x)) {
            Child.prototype[x] = prototype[x];
        }
    }
    Child.prototype.$super = function (propName) {
        var prop = Parent.prototype[propName];
        if (typeof prop !== "function") {
            return prop;
        }
        var self = this;
        return function (/*arg1, arg2, ...*/) {
            var selfProto = self.__proto__;
            self.__proto__ = Parent.prototype;
            try {
                return prop.apply(self, arguments);
            }
            finally {
                self.__proto__ = selfProto;
            }
        };
    };
}

Example:

function A () {}
extend(A, {
    foo: function () {
        return "A1";
    }
});

function B () {}
extend(B, {
    foo: function () {
        return this.$super("foo")() + "_B1";
    }
}, A);

function C () {}
extend(C, {
    foo: function () {
        return this.$super("foo")() + "_C1";
    }
}, B);


var c = new C();
var res1 = c.foo();
B.prototype.foo = function () {
    return this.$super("foo")() + "_B2";
};
var res2 = c.foo();

alert(res1 + "\n" + res2);