Namespacer

A simple utility for creating namespaces.

Namespacer is mostly meant for the browser, but it also works with AMD and CommonJS modules, although namespaces usually are not necessary in those environments.

Installation

Bower

bower install namespacer

NPM

npm install namespacer

Usage

Using namespaces is a great way for organizing code. In most other languages, this is a built-in feature. With JavaScript, it must be done using objects.

Typical namespacing with JavaScript occurs like this:

//Usually this step can be skipped, as the root namespace would be declared
//once in the beginning
if (typeof RootNamespace == 'undefined') {
    RootNamespace = {};
}

//To add a property on a namespace, you have to check for its existence first
//One disadvantage is you have to repeat this boilerplate for every level 
//of the namespace.
if (!RootNamespace.level1) {
    RootNamespace.level1 = {};
}

//This way is more compact, but still very cumbersome to write
RootNamespace.level1.level2 = (RootNamespace.level1.level2 || {});

With Namespacer, it becomes simplified:

//use Namespacer.createNamespace() once to declare a root namespace
RootNamespace = Namespacer.createNamespace();

//Add or extend namespaces to your heart's content
RootNamespace('mywebapp')('category')('level1')('level2').property = 'blah';

//When you want to retrieve a value, it can be accessible via dot notation
var prop = RootNamespace.mywebapp.category.level1.level2.property;

Each namespace is a function which, when called with a string, will check for that namespace's existence, and return it, or create a new namespace if not found. Since Function extends Object in JavaScript, this is perfectly valid, and can be treated like a regular object. Note that you cannot assign a value to a namespace, but you can always assign to the property of a namespace.

Tips

//You can also use Namespacer() as a shortcut
RootNamespace = Namespacer();

//For function classes, it is recommended to assign it to a separate variable
//for easier access to the prototype.
var MyClass = RootNamespace('mywebapp')('category')('level1')('level2').MyClass = function(){};

MyClass.prototype.myMethod = function () {};

License

ISC