To make a custom datatype or extend a built-in datatype you have to use the extends keyword followed by the name of datatype you want to extend.
By this, you inherit the properties and methods of the extending datatype.
Let's make an array of our own,
// custom array type
class MySuperCoolArray extends Array {
// custom array methods and properties here
}
Here we have made a class MySuperCoolArray and is also inherits the basic functionalities of the normal array in JavaScript.
Let now add a special method that returns the last element of our array.
// our own array type
class MySuperCoolArray extends Array {
// method which returns the last element
lastElement() {
// this --> here refers to the array itself
return this[this.length - 1];
}
}
// make an array from custom MySuperCoolArray
const arr = new MySuperCoolArray(1, 2, 3, 4, 4);
console.log(a.lastElement()); // 4
Yay!. 🚀
The cool part is that we also get all the methods and properties which we were using in the normal array type.
To understand that let's loop through all the elements of the custom array using the normal array forEach() method.
// our own array type
class MySuperCoolArray extends Array {
// method which returns the last element
lastElement() {
// this --> here refers to the array itself
return this[this.length - 1];
}
}
// make an array from custom MySuperCoolArray
const arr = new MySuperCoolArray(1, 2, 3, 4, 4);
// looping using the normal array forEach method
arr.forEach((element) => console.log(element));
/*
OUTPUT
------
1
2
3
4
4
*/
By extending the normal types you inherit their properties and methods with it.
