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The prototype is an object that every function gets automatically, as soon as you create it.

You can add properties and methods to the prototype property of your constructor function. Then all objects created with this constructor will have access to everything you add to the prototype.

var Person = function(name) {
  this.name = name;
};
Person.prototype.say = function() {
  return this.name;
};

if you add properties to the prototype of a "normal" function, meaning function that you don't invoke as a constructor, these will not be used.

Using the prototype

var adam = new Person('Adam');
alert(adam.name); // "Adam"
alert(adam.say()); // "Adam"

As you can see the object has access to the prototype’s members.

The prototype properties are shared among all objects.

Rule of thumb

And a general rule of thumb – the properties and methods that are meant to be reused and shared and inherited, should be added to the prototype.

Tags: constructors, prototype

This entry was posted on Monday, September 14th, 2009 and is filed under Object creation patterns. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.