• @[email protected]
    link
    fedilink
    13 months ago

    Ok how about this then, I frequently do something like this:

    let className = 'btn'
      if (displayType) {
        className += ` ${displayType}`
      }
      if (size) {
        className += ` ${size}`
      }
      if (bordered) {
        className += ' border'
      }
      if (classNameProp) {
        className += ` ${classNameProp}`
      }
    

    How would this be made better with a functional approach? And would be more legible, better in anyway?

    • @[email protected]
      link
      fedilink
      1
      edit-2
      3 months ago

      I’d say this example doesn’t fully show off what immutable data can do–it tends to help as things scale up to much larger code–but here’s how I might do it in JS.

      function generate_class_name( display_type, size, bordered, class_name_prop ) 
      {
        classes = [
            'btn',
            ( display_type ? display_type : [] ),
            ( size ? size : [] ),
            ( bordered ? bordered : [] ),
            ( class_name_prop ? class_name_prop : [] ),
        ];
      
        return classes.flat().join( " " );
      }
      
      console.log( "<"
          + generate_class_name( "mobile", "big", null, null )
          + ">" );
      console.log( "<"
          + generate_class_name( "desktop", "small", "solid", "my-class" ) 
          + ">" );
      console.log( "<"
          + generate_class_name( null, "medium", null, null ) 
          + ">" );
      

      Results:

      <btn mobile big>
      <btn desktop small solid my-class>
      <btn medium>
      

      Notice that JavaScript has a bit of the immutability idea built in here. The Array.flat() returns a new array with flattened elements. That means we can chain the call to Array.join( " " ). The classes array is never modified, and we could keep using it as it was. Unfortunately, JavaScript doesn’t always do that; push() and pop() modify the array in place.

      This particular example would show off its power a little more if there wasn’t that initial btn class always there. Then you would end up with a leading space in your example, but handling it as an array this way avoids the problem.

      • @[email protected]
        link
        fedilink
        23 months ago

        Very interesting. Actually the part you mention about there being an initial 'btn' class is a good point. Using arrays and joining would be nice for that. I wish more people would chime in. Because between our two examples, I think mine is more readable. But yours would probably scale better. I also wonder about the performance implications of creating arrays. But that might be negligible.