Did JavaScript objects have static methods before ES6 class static methods?

#help #javascript

I saw a tutorial which used few javascript classes

class Products(){}
class UI(){}
class Storage(){}

I thought in the wild I'm not going to always be working with ES6 classes, so I should be able to recreate these with ES5 objects

function Car(price) {
    this.price = price,
    this.someMethod = function(){ }
}

But the Storage class had only static methods which threw me of a bit

class Storage {
  static saveProducts(products) { }
  static getProduct(id) { }
  static saveCart(cart) {  }
  static getCart() { }
}

I understand the difference, we can't directly access Car.someMethod() but we can access Storage.getCar().

My question is, is this a good practice? And most importantly is this the way to implement this functionality without using classes

function Storage(){
  this.someMethod(){ }
}
Storage.prototype.someOtherMethod = function(){ }
Storage.theStaticMethod = function(){ }

Though I'm relatively new at JavaScript I have never seen static methods before ES6. I've always seen methods created through the prototype. Though it does pass by tests (the Storage.theStaticMethod works exactly as static theStaticMethod as far as I can tell) is my understanding correct? Why does it look wrong?

Top comments (2)

Stepan Kurennykh • May 9 '19

Yep, you are right.

class Storage {
  static staticMethod() { }
  someMethod() { }
}

is equivalent to

function Storage() {}
Storage.staticMethod = function staticMethod() {};
Storage.prototype.someMethod = function someMethod() {};

and when we create new object

var stor = new Storage();

operator new do this things:

create new object and set this object prototype (real prototype, not just property with name prototype) to property with name prototype of Storage Storage.prototype. Equivalent is var obj = Object.create(Storage.prototype);
call Storage() and bind created object as this inside function. Equivalent is Storage.call(obj)
when function have executed and done some staff with obj we can assign obj to stor. Equivalent is stor = obj.