Is there a "concise" way to do namespacing in JavaScript?
javascript, namespaces
Solution
Javascript doesn't have stand-alone namespaces. It has functions, which can provide scope for resolving names, and objects, which can contribute to the named data accessible in a given scope.
Here's your example, corrected:
var namespaces = { com: { example: { /* example.com's data */ } } }
This is a variable `namespaces` being assigned an object literal. The object contains one property: `com`, an object with one property: `example`, an object which presumably would contain something interesting.
So, you can type something like namespaces.com.example.somePropertyOrFunctionOnExample and it'll all work. Of course, it's also ridiculous. You don't have a hierarchical namespace, you have an object containing an object containing an object with the stuff you actually care about.
var com_example_data = { /* example.com's data */ };
That works just as well, without the pointless hierarchy.
Now, if you actually want to build a hierarchy, you can try something like this:
com_example = com_example || {};
com_example.flags = com_example.flags || { active: false, restricted: true};
com_example.ops = com_example.ops || (function()
{
var launchCodes = "38925491753824"; // hidden / private
return {
activate: function() { /* ... */ },
destroyTheWorld: function() { /* ... */ }
};
})();
...which is, IMHO, reasonably concise.
Problem
I've frequently encountered sites that put all of their JavaScript inside a `namespace` structure along the lines of: ``` namespaces = { com : { example: { example.com's data} } ``` However, setting this up safely with respect to other namespaced frameworks seems to require a relatively hefty amount of code (defined as > 2 lines). I was wondering whether anyone knows of a concise way to do this? Furthermore, whether there's a relatively standard/consistent way to structure it? For example, is the `com` namespace directly attached to the global object, or is it attached through a namespace object? [Edit: whoops, obviously `{com = { ... } }` wouldn't accomplish anything close to what I intended, thanks to Shog9 for pointing that out.]