Private members in CoffeeScript?

Question

Does somebody know how to make private, non-static members in CoffeeScript? Currently I\'m doing this, which just uses a public variable starting with an underscore to clari

Answer 1

I'd like to show something even fancier

class Thing extends EventEmitter
  constructor: ( nm) ->
    _name = nm
    Object.defineProperty @, 'name',
      get: ->
        _name
      set: (val) ->
        _name = val
      enumerable: true
      configurable: true

Now you can do

t = new Thing( 'Dropin')
#  members can be accessed like properties with the protection from getter/setter functions!
t.name = 'Dragout'  
console.log t.name
# no way to access the private member
console.log t._name

Answer 2

"class" in coffee scripts leads to an prototype based result. So even if you use a private variable it is shared between instances. You can do this:

EventEmitter = ->
  privateName = ""

  setName: (name) -> privateName = name
  getName: -> privateName

.. leads to

emitter1 = new EventEmitter()
emitter1.setName 'Name1'

emitter2 = new EventEmitter()
emitter2.setName 'Name2'

console.log emitter1.getName() # 'Name1'
console.log emitter2.getName() # 'Name2'

But be careful to put the private members before the public functions, because coffee script returns the public functions as object. Look at the compiled Javascript:

EventEmitter = function() {
  var privateName = "";

  return {
    setName: function(name) {
      return privateName = name;
    },
    getName: function() {
      return privateName;
    }
  };
};

Answer 3

There is one problem with Vitaly's answer and that is you cannot define variables that you want to be unique to the scope, if you made a private name that way and then changed it, the name value would change for every single instance of the class, so there is one way we can solve that problem

# create a function that will pretend to be our class 
MyClass = ->

    # this has created a new scope 
    # define our private varibles
    names = ['joe', 'jerry']

    # the names array will be different for every single instance of the class
    # so that solves our problem

    # define our REAL class
    class InnerMyClass 

        # test function 
        getNames: ->
            return names;

    # return new instance of our class 
    new InnerMyClass

It's not impossible to access the the names array from outside unless you use getNames

Test this out

test = new MyClass;

tempNames = test.getNames()

tempNames # is ['joe', 'jerry']

# add a new value 
tempNames.push 'john'

# now get the names again 
newNames = test.getNames();

# the value of newNames is now 
['joe', 'jerry', 'john']

# now to check a new instance has a new clean names array 
newInstance = new MyClass
newInstance.getNames() # === ['joe', 'jerry']


# test should not be affected
test.getNames() # === ['joe', 'jerry', 'john']

Compiled Javascript

var MyClass;

MyClass = function() {
  var names;
  names = ['joe', 'jerry'];
  MyClass = (function() {

    MyClass.name = 'MyClass';

    function MyClass() {}

    MyClass.prototype.getNames = function() {
      return names;
    };

    return MyClass;

  })();
  return new MyClass;
};

Answer 4

You can't do it easily with CoffeeScript classes, because they use the Javascript constructor pattern for creating classes.

However, you could say something like this:

callMe = (f) -> f()
extend = (a, b) -> a[m] = b[m] for m of b; a

class superclass
  constructor: (@extra) ->
  method: (x) -> alert "hello world! #{x}#{@extra}"

subclass = (args...) -> extend (new superclass args...), callMe ->
  privateVar = 1

  getter: -> privateVar
  setter: (newVal) -> privateVar = newVal
  method2: (x) -> @method "#{x} foo and "

instance = subclass 'bar'
instance.setter 123
instance2 = subclass 'baz'
instance2.setter 432

instance.method2 "#{instance.getter()} <-> #{instance2.getter()} ! also, "
alert "but: #{instance.privateVar} <-> #{instance2.privateVar}"

But you lose the greatness of CoffeeScript classes, because you can't inherit from a class created that way by any other way than by using extend() again. instanceof will stop working, and objecs created this way consume a little bit more memory. Also, you mustn't use the new and super keywords anymore.

The point is, that the closures must be created every time a class is instantiated. The member closures in pure CoffeeScript classes are created only once - that is, when the class runtime "type" is constructed.

Answer 5

Here is a solution that draws on several of the other answers here plus https://stackoverflow.com/a/7579956/1484513. It stores the private instance (non-static) variables in a private class (static) array and uses an object ID to know which element of that array contains the data belonging to each instance.

# Add IDs to classes.
(->
  i = 1
  Object.defineProperty Object.prototype, "__id", { writable:true }
  Object.defineProperty Object.prototype, "_id", { get: -> @__id ?= i++ }
)()

class MyClass
  # Private attribute storage.
  __ = []

  # Private class (static) variables.
  _a = null
  _b = null

  # Public instance attributes.
  c: null

  # Private functions.
  _getA = -> a

  # Public methods.
  getB: -> _b
  getD: -> __[@._id].d

  constructor: (a,b,@c,d) ->
    _a = a
    _b = b

    # Private instance attributes.
    __[@._id] = {d:d}

# Test

test1 = new MyClass 's', 't', 'u', 'v'
console.log 'test1', test1.getB(), test1.c, test1.getD()  # test1 t u v

test2 = new MyClass 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z'
console.log 'test2', test2.getB(), test2.c, test2.getD()  # test2 X Y Z

console.log 'test1', test1.getB(), test1.c, test1.getD()  # test1 X u v

console.log test1.a         # undefined
console.log test1._a        # undefined

# Test sub-classes.

class AnotherClass extends MyClass

test1 = new AnotherClass 's', 't', 'u', 'v'
console.log 'test1', test1.getB(), test1.c, test1.getD()  # test1 t u v

test2 = new AnotherClass 'W', 'X', 'Y', 'Z'
console.log 'test2', test2.getB(), test2.c, test2.getD()  # test2 X Y Z

console.log 'test1', test1.getB(), test1.c, test1.getD()  # test1 X u v

console.log test1.a         # undefined
console.log test1._a        # undefined
console.log test1.getA()    # fatal error

Answer 6

classes are just functions so they create scopes. everything defined inside this scope won't be visible from the outside.

class Foo
  # this will be our private method. it is invisible
  # outside of the current scope
  foo = -> "foo"

  # this will be our public method.
  # note that it is defined with ':' and not '='
  # '=' creates a *local* variable
  # : adds a property to the class prototype
  bar: -> foo()

c = new Foo

# this will return "foo"
c.bar()

# this will crash
c.foo

coffeescript compiles this into the following:

(function() {
  var Foo, c;

  Foo = (function() {
    var foo;

    function Foo() {}

    foo = function() {
      return "foo";
    };

    Foo.prototype.bar = function() {
      return foo();
    };

    return Foo;

  })();

  c = new Foo;

  c.bar();

  c.foo();

}).call(this);