March 15, 2001 - Explicit Definition of an Object's Method

March 15, 2001 Explicit Definition of an Object's Method Tips: March 2001 Yehuda Shiran, Ph.D. Doc JavaScript

function Employee() {
  this.dept = "HR";
  this.manager = "John Johnson";
}

When you create an object, it automatically inherits all Object's properties (constructor, toString(), hasOwnProperty(), etc.) You can add properties to the object by attaching them to the this value within the constructor function, as shown above. As for the methods, there are three different ways to define them. The first method calls for normal function creation, inside the constructor function. Let's define a method, setRegisterA():

function Employee() {
  var registerA = "Initial Value";
  function setRegisterA(param) {
    registerA = param;
  }
  this.setRegisterA = setRegisterA;
  this.dept = "HR";
  this.manager = "John Johnson";
}

Let's use it now. First, create a variable of class Employee:

var Ken = new Employee;

And then store a new value in Register A:

Ken.setRegisterA("new value stored in 010315");