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András Tóth
András Tóth

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JS Clean Code tip: Don't use tuples for returned objects

#javascript #cleancode

I am not going to talk about the Record & Tuple Proposal, but about this bad habit:

function createSomething() {
  const thing1 = { 
    aProperty: 'indeed'
  };

  function thing2() { /* ... */ }

  return [thing1, thing2];
}
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There is absolutely everything wrong with this example. Honestly I was kinda surprised to see it in actual production code.

The problem is losing naming

So let's see some examples of using the thing above:

// Having a typo won't cause any errors
// but you won't find the usages.
const [thang, thing2] = createSomething();

// This is not just valid, but super misleading!
// You accidentally changed the order and you had no errors!
const [thing2, thing1] = createSomething();
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We are losing the meaningful names still intact inside createSomething with nothing in return. (React team uses this actually to name your hooks in any way you want - but they also try to enforce naming through linter rules).

How to fix it

Simply return an object:

return { thing1, thing2 };
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And this is how you use it:

// will cause error
const { thang, thing2 } = createSomething();

// order does not matter, no penalty 
// if you misremember the order
const { thing2, thing1 } = createSomething();
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💪 🦾 💪 🦾 💪 🦾 💪 🦾

Top comments (2)

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ronnewcomb profile image
Ron Newcomb • • Edited

Counterpoint: call the same function multiple times. Without tuples, now you have name clashes: 

const MyComponent = () => {
    const { data: customers, error: custError } = useAsync(getCustomers);
    const { data: order, error: ordError } = useAsync(getOrders);
    const { data: invoices, error: invError } = useAsync(getInvoices);
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Returning tuples makes this issue go away. This is why React uses tuples for many hooks.

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latobibor profile image
András Tóth •

This is a very valid, but a very rare use case. My point above is that whenever you use tuples you open a class of problems about "magic location". So you have to use them very sparingly with a lot of consciousness.

Here you also demonstrate that it is highly unlikely that const { data: customerError, error: customers } = useAsync(getCustomers) would happen, since it would look odd and you will not fail it.

Lastly in the example above, why don't use transform data inside getCustomers already so it returns {customers, customerError} instead? What if you realize you need to return more than two objects?

So, my point is: use it very rarely and very carefully.

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