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Re: Interface prototype objects and ES6 @@toStringTag

From: Allen Wirfs-Brock <allen@wirfs-brock.com>
Date: Mon, 13 May 2013 14:01:31 -0700
Cc: "public-script-coord@w3.org" <public-script-coord@w3.org>, es-discuss <es-discuss@mozilla.org>
Message-Id: <B28C097C-0308-48C4-8CDD-BEB42B5917D0@wirfs-brock.com>
To: Erik Arvidsson <erik.arvidsson@gmail.com>

On May 13, 2013, at 1:50 PM, Erik Arvidsson wrote:

> The way that WebIDL require Object.prototype.toString to return "[object TypePrototype]" for the interface prototype object and "[object Type]" for the instances seems to imply that every instance needs to have an own @@toStringTag.
> 
> http://people.mozilla.org/~jorendorff/es6-draft.html#sec-15.2.4.2
> http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/WebIDL/#es-environment
> 
> If an instance does not have its own @@toStringTag, Object.prototype.toString will read through to the [[Prototype]] which would return the wrong string.

Well, toString just does a [[Get]] for @@toStringTag.  You are perfectly free to implement it as a get accessor that takes into account whether the this value is an instance or a prototype object. Not sure whether the complexity is really worth it in most cases. I considered building something like that into Object.prototype.toString but it seemed hard to justify and there was no (ES) legacy reason for doing so.

The preferred way to over-ride toString should be via a toString method, not via @@toStringTag. 

Allen



Received on Monday, 13 May 2013 21:01:59 UTC

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