What are ES6 classes?
Chinweuba Elijah AzubuikeOverview
The ubiquitous JavaScript approach of emulating class-like inheritance hierarchies via functions and prototypes is formalized in ES6 Classes. They’re essentially sugar on top of prototype-based OO, providing a declarative form for class patterns that promote interoperability.
Just like every programming language class, Javascript ES6 supports the following features:
- Prototype-based inheritance
- Constructors
- Super calls
- Instance and static methods
Let's create a class.
Example
Let's look at the code below:
'use strict';
// Example 1: Creating a new class
// using the keyword 'class' to define the base class
class Biography {
// constructor() { }
constructor(dob, sex) {
this.name = 'John Doe';
this.dob = dob;
this.sex = sex;
}
// method declarations of the class
sayName() {
console.log('Hi, I am a ', this.name + '.');
}
}
// Classes are used just like ES5 constructor functions:
let p = new Biography(1994, 'Female');
p.sayName();
console.log('My gender is ' + p.sex);Explanation
In the above code:
Line 7: We create a class Biography .
Lines 11 to 15: We declare class properties.
Lines 19 to 21: We instantiate a method sayName() to log the name property.
Line 28: We instantiate the class on p variable.
Line 29: We access the class method sayName() .
Line 30: We access the class properties sex .
You can play around with the code sample for better understanding.
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Chinweuba Elijah AzubuikeView all Courses
