What’s up with the IIFE

The js generated for the class could have been:

function Point(x, y) {
    this.x = x;
    this.y = y;
}
Point.prototype.add = function (point) {
    return new Point(this.x + point.x, this.y + point.y);
};

The reason it’s wrapped in an Immediately-Invoked Function Expression (IIFE) i.e.

(function () {
    // BODY
    return Point;
})();

has to do with inheritance. It allows TypeScript to capture the base class as a variable _super e.g.

var Point3D = (function (_super) {
    __extends(Point3D, _super);
    function Point3D(x, y, z) {
        _super.call(this, x, y);
        this.z = z;
    }
    Point3D.prototype.add = function (point) {
        var point2D = _super.prototype.add.call(this, point);
        return new Point3D(point2D.x, point2D.y, this.z + point.z);
    };
    return Point3D;
})(Point);

Notice that the IIFE allows TypeScript to easily capture the base class Point in a _super variable and that is used consistently in the class body.

__extends

You will notice that as soon as you inherit a class TypeScript also generates the following function:

var __extends = this.__extends || function (d, b) {
    for (var p in b) if (b.hasOwnProperty(p)) d[p] = b[p];
    function __() { this.constructor = d; }
    __.prototype = b.prototype;
    d.prototype = new __();
};

Here d refers to the derived class and b refers to the base class. This function does two things:

1. copies the static members of the base class onto the child class i.e. for (var p in b) if (b.hasOwnProperty(p)) d[p] = b[p];
2. sets up the child class function’s prototype to optionally lookup members on the parent’s proto i.e. effectively d.prototype.__proto__ = b.prototype

People rarely have trouble understanding 1, but many people struggle with 2. So an explanation is in order.

d.prototype.__proto__ = b.prototype

After having tutored many people about this I find the following explanation to be simplest. First we will explain how the code from __extends is equivalent to the simple d.prototype.__proto__ = b.prototype, and then why this line in itself is significant. To understand all this you need to know these things:

1. __proto__
2. prototype
3. effect of new on this inside the called function
4. effect of new on prototype and __proto__

All objects in JavaScript contain a __proto__ member. This member is often not accessible in older browsers (sometimes documentation refers to this magical property as [[prototype]]). It has one objective: If a property is not found on an object during lookup (e.g. obj.property) then it is looked up at obj.__proto__.property. If it is still not found then obj.__proto__.__proto__.property till either: it is found or the latest .__proto__ itself is null. This explains why JavaScript is said to support prototypal inheritance out of the box. This is shown in the following example, which you can run in the chrome console or Node.js:

var foo = {}
// setup on foo as well as foo.__proto__
foo.bar = 123;
foo.__proto__.bar = 456;
console.log(foo.bar); // 123
delete foo.bar; // remove from object
console.log(foo.bar); // 456
delete foo.__proto__.bar; // remove from foo.__proto__
console.log(foo.bar); // undefined

Cool so you understand __proto__. Another useful fact is that all functions in JavaScript have a property called prototype and that it has a member constructor pointing back to the function. This is shown below:

function Foo() { }
console.log(Foo.prototype); // {} i.e. it exists and is not undefined
console.log(Foo.prototype.constructor === Foo); // Has a member called `constructor` pointing back to the function

Now let’s look at effect of new on this inside the called function. Basically this inside the called function is going to point to the newly created object that will be returned from the function. It’s simple to see if you mutate a property on this inside the function:

function Foo() {
    this.bar = 123;
}
// call with the new operator
var newFoo = new Foo();
console.log(newFoo.bar); // 123

Now the only other thing you need to know is that calling new on a function assigns the prototype of the function to the __proto__ of the newly created object that is returned from the function call. Here is the code you can run to completely understand it:

function Foo() { }
var foo = new Foo();
console.log(foo.__proto__ === Foo.prototype); // True!

That’s it. Now look at the following straight out of __extends. I’ve taken the liberty to number these lines:

1  function __() { this.constructor = d; }
2   __.prototype = b.prototype;
3   d.prototype = new __();

Reading this function in reverse the d.prototype = new __() on line 3 effectively means d.prototype = {__proto__ : __.prototype} (because of the effect of new on prototype and __proto__), combining it with the previous line (i.e. line 2 __.prototype = b.prototype;) you get d.prototype = {__proto__ : b.prototype}.

But wait, we wanted d.prototype.__proto__ i.e. just the proto changed and maintain the old d.prototype.constructor. This is where the significance of the first line (i.e. function __() { this.constructor = d; }) comes in. Here we will effectively have d.prototype = {__proto__ : __.prototype, d.constructor = d} (because of the effect of new on this inside the called function). So, since we restore d.prototype.constructor, the only thing we have truly mutated is the __proto__ hence d.prototype.__proto__ = b.prototype.

d.prototype.__proto__ = b.prototype significance

The significance is that it allows you to add member functions to a child class and inherit others from the base class. This is demonstrated by the following simple example:

function Animal() { }
Animal.prototype.walk = function () { console.log('walk') };
function Bird() { }
Bird.prototype.__proto__ = Animal.prototype;
Bird.prototype.fly = function () { console.log('fly') };
var bird = new Bird();
bird.walk();
bird.fly();

Basically bird.fly will be looked up from bird.__proto__.fly (remember that new makes the bird.__proto__ point to Bird.prototype) and bird.walk (an inherited member) will be looked up from bird.__proto__.__proto__.walk (as bird.__proto__ == Bird.prototype and bird.__proto__.__proto__ == Animal.prototype).