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JavaScript

Dominik Hentschel
Dominik Hentschel
813 Points
Posted by Dominik Hentschel
Dominik Hentschel
813 Points

JS Class - how to store dynamic objects to an object

I have a program to setup a graph network. Up to now I stored all class properties in the constructor and created methods to add values to properties which are not known upon creation of the objects:

class Node { constructor(name){ this.name = name; this.parentEdge = ''; this.childEdges = []; } addParentEdge(edge){ this.parentEdge = edge; } addChildEdge(edge){ this.childEdges.push(edge); } }

Recently I learned in my js course to store dynamic properties not in the class constructor but to use getters and setters.

For the parentEdge that works quite well. set parentEdge(edge) { this._parentEdge = edge; }

But for the ChildEdges I don't want to set a whole array with all childEdges at once but just to push one new array entry when needed.

I am happy for any help, thanks a lot!

1 Answer

Travis Alstrand
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Travis Alstrand
Treehouse Project Reviewer
Travis Alstrand
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Travis Alstrand
Treehouse Project Reviewer

Hey Dominik Hentschel 👋

I would think that using 

set childEdges(edge) {
    this._childEdges.push(edge);
}

Would work when setting it with node.childEdges = edge. I don't have a playground in front of me to test with so I could be wrong but I feel that should work.

The downside is that node.childEdges = edge looks like an assignment when it's really an addition.

Me personally, the class method you have above

addChildEdge(edge) {
    this._childEdges.push(edge);
  }

would have been my approach as well.

Dominik Hentschel
Dominik Hentschel
813 Points
Dominik Hentschel
Dominik Hentschel
813 Points

Hey Travis Alstrand,

thank you very much for your answer! :-)

Now I understand how that could have been implemented and its downside when setting new edges.

It is very valuable for me to understand how to code my real projects in a clean way.

I'll keep my class method for this specific porpose.

Thank you!