TypeScript: Week Reflection

TypeScript: Week Reflection

Introduction

Type Script already provide decorators to help developers implement reflection.

If we use the technique decorators, we have to add decorators on the target class during developing.

But is there a way to find members of a specific instance?

Here is a code to reflect an object instance by using JSON functions.

The limitations:

Must provide an class instance

Cannot find members which have not be initialed.

Cannot find the class of a member

Only can provide typeof and isArray attributes.

Source Code

Source

export class ReflectMemberInfo {
constructor(public name:string, public type: string, public isArray: boolean) {
}
}

export class WeekReflector {
members: ReflectMemberInfo[] = [];
reflect(obj: any): void {
JSON.stringify(obj, (key, value) => {
if (key == '') {
// it is the root object
return value;
}

var isArray = (value instanceof Array);
this.members.push(new ReflectMemberInfo(key, typeof(value), isArray));
return null;
});
}
}

// Test
class TestObject {
memberBoolean: boolean = false;
memberNumber: number = 1;
memberString: string = "Jack";
// memberSymbol: Symbol = Symbol();
memberUndefined?: string = undefined; // type is undefined
memberNull: string | null = null;   // type is object
memberCannotFound: string;      // cannot be reflected
memberObject: TestNestedObject = new TestNestedObject();
// type is object
memberStringArray: string[] = ["A", "B", "C"];
// type is object
memberObjectArray: TestNestedObject[] = [new TestNestedObject(), new TestNestedObject()];
// type is function
memberFunction: Function = () => {};
// cannot be reflected
public normalFunc(): any {
return null;
}

}

class TestNestedObject {
nestedNumber: number = 2;
nestedString: string = "Mike";
nestedNull: string | null = null;
nestedUndefined?: string = undefined;
nestedStringArray: string[] = ["A", "B", "C"];
}

var reflector = new WeekReflector();
reflector.reflect(new TestObject());
console.log(reflector.members);

Result

[ ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberBoolean', type: 'boolean', isArray: false },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberNumber', type: 'number', isArray: false },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberString', type: 'string', isArray: false },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberUndefined', type: 'undefined', isArray: false },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberNull', type: 'object', isArray: false },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberObject', type: 'object', isArray: false },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberStringArray', type: 'object', isArray: true },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberObjectArray', type: 'object', isArray: true },
ReflectMemberInfo { name: 'memberFunction', type: 'function', isArray: false } ]