get-object-class

A more explicit improvement on typeof

Installation

$ npm i get-object-class --save

Usage

// ES2015
import goc from 'get-object-class';

// CommonJS
const goc = require('get-object-class');

// script
const goc = window.getObjectClass;

Implementation

const array = [];
const promise = Promise.resolve();

console.log(goc(array)); // array
console.log(goc(promise)); // promise

Why do we need this?

Generally speaking, you can use the typeof operator to determine a number of object classes:

• boolean
• function
• number
• object
• string
• symbol
• undefined

However, this list is quite limited, and things can get confusing for other classes of objects:

console.log(typeof new Date()); // object
console.log(typeof null); // object

This library rectifies that by giving you the specific object class for any object (if I missed one tell me, I'll add it):

• Arguments => arguments
• Array => array
• ArrayBuffer => arraybuffer
• Boolean => boolean
• DataView => dataview
• Date => date
• Error => error
• Float32Array => float32array
• Float64Array => float64array
• Function => function
• GeneratorFunction => generatorfunction
• global => global (specific to node)
• Int8Array => int8array
• Int16Array => int16array
• Int32Array => int32array
• JSON => json (tests the JSON object itself, not if the value is a valid JSON string)
• Map => map
• Math => math
• Null => null
• Number => number
• Object => object
• Promise => promise
• RegExp => regexp
• Set => set
• String => string
• Symbol => symbol
• Uint8Array => uint8array
• Uint8ClampedArray => uint8Clampedarray
• Uint16Array => uint16array
• Uint32Array => uint32array
• WeakMap => weakmap
• WeakSet => weakset
• Window => window (specific to browser)

Checker functions

get-object-class also provides a checker function for each object class, example:

const array = [];
const boolean = true;

console.log(goc.isArray(array)); // true
console.log(goc.isBoolean(array)); // false

Keep in mind that the name of the function is driven by the PascalCase names in the list above:

const regexp = /foo/;

console.log(goc.isRegExp(regexp)); // true
console.log(goc.isFloat32Array(regexp)); // false
console.log(goc.isJSON(regexp)); // false

Development

Standard stuff, clone the repo and npm i to get the dependencies. npm scripts available:

• build => builds the distributed JS with NODE_ENV=development and with sourcemaps
• build-minified => builds the distributed JS with NODE_ENV=production and minified
• compile-for-publish => runs the lint, test, transpile, build, and build-minified scripts
• dev => runs the webpack dev server for the playground
• lint => runs ESLint against files in the src folder
• prepublish => if in publish, runs compile-for-publish
• test => run ava with NODE_ENV=test
• test:watch => runs test but with persistent watcher
• transpile => runs Babel against files in src to files in lib