seanmonstar

Function.kwargs

Function.kwargs

I get to write a lot of Python now on a daily basis, and some Python bits bleed back into my JavaScript writing. One aspect that I love is keyword arguments.

def example(name, description, url, help, error):
    pass

example(name='A', url=myURL, description='An example')

Having something similar in JavaScript is possible, but requires a bit of work for a function to support it. Inspired by Python and MooTools overloadSetter, I cooked up a decorator to easily convert a function to allow keyword arguments¹.

var example = function(name, description, url, help, error) {

}.kwargs();

example({ name: 'B', error: true, description: 'kwargs in javascript' });
example('C', 'args plus kwargs', { help: true, error: false });

Just like in Python, you can provide arguments the regular way, or pass in keyword arguments. You can also mix them; the last argument will be checked to see if it’s a kwargs-like object.