es6.md

layout	title	permalink
page	ES6	/es6/

ES6 New Features:

• arrows
• classes
• enhanced object literals
• template strings
• destructuring
• default + rest + spread
• let + const
• iterators + for..of
• generators
• unicode
• modules
• module loaders
• map + set + weakmap + weakset
• proxies
• symbols
• subclassable built-ins
• promises
• math + number + string + array + object APIs
• binary and octal literals
• reflect api
• tail calls

Arrows

Arrows are a function shorthand using the => syntax.

// Expression bodies
var odds = evens.map(v => v + 1);
var nums = evens.map((v, i) => v + i);

// Statement bodies
nums.forEach(v => {
  if (v % 5 === 0)
    fives.push(v);
});

// Lexical this
var bob = {
  _name: "Bob",
  _friends: [],
  printFriends() {
    this._friends.forEach(f =>
      console.log(this._name + " knows " + f));
  }
}

Enhanced Object Literals

Object literals are extended to support setting the prototype at construction, shorthand for foo: foo assignments, defining methods and making super calls.

var obj = {
    // __proto__
    __proto__: theProtoObj,
    // Shorthand for ‘handler: handler’
    handler,
    // Methods
    toString() {
     // Super calls
     return "d " + super.toString();
    },
    // Computed (dynamic) property names
    [ "prop_" + (() => 42)() ]: 42
};

Template Strings

let name = "Lemmy", time = "today";
`Hello ${name}, how are you ${time}?`

Let + Const

Block-scoped binding constructs. let is the new var. const is single-assignment. Static restrictions prevent use before assignment.

Notes:

• You cannot change value of a const variable after you create it.
• let and const varaibles are never hoisted to the top of their scopes.
• let has major advantage of rebinding the loop variable on every iteration, so each loop get its 'own' copy, rather than the globally-scoped variable.

function f() {
  {
    let x;
    {
      // okay, block scoped name
      const x = "sneaky";
      // error, const
      x = "foo";
    }
    // error, already declared in block
    let x = "inner";
  }
}

Iterators + For..Of

Generalize for..in to custom iterator-based iteration with for..of.

let fibonacci = {
  [Symbol.iterator]() {
    let pre = 0, cur = 1;
    return {
      next() {
        [pre, cur] = [cur, pre + cur];
        return { done: false, value: cur }
      }
    }
  }
}

for (var n of fibonacci) {
  // truncate the sequence at 1000
  if (n > 1000)
    break;
  console.log(n);
}

Generators

Generators simplify iterator-authoring using function* and yield. A function declared as function* returns a Generator instance. Generators are subtypes of iterators which include additional next and throw. These enable values to flow back into the generator, so yield is an expression form which returns a value (or throws).

var fibonacci = {
  [Symbol.iterator]: function*() {
    var pre = 0, cur = 1;
    for (;;) {
      var temp = pre;
      pre = cur;
      cur += temp;
      yield cur;
    }
  }
}

for (var n of fibonacci) {
  // truncate the sequence at 1000
  if (n > 1000)
    break;
  console.log(n);
}

Unicode

Non-breaking additions to support full Unicode, including new Unicode literal form in strings and new RegExp umode to handle code points, as well as new APIs to process strings at the 21bit code points level. These additions support building global apps in JavaScript.

// same as ES5.1
"𠮷".length == 2

// new RegExp behaviour, opt-in ‘u’
"𠮷".match(/./u)[0].length == 2

// new form
"\u{20BB7}"=="𠮷"=="\uD842\uDFB7"

// new String ops
"𠮷".codePointAt(0) == 0x20BB7

// for-of iterates code points
for(var c of "𠮷") {
  console.log(c);
}

Modules

Prior to ES6, we used libraries such as Browserify to create modules on the client-side, and require in Node.js. With ES6, we can now directly use modules of all types (AMD and CommonJS).

Exporting in CommonJS

module.exports = 1;
module.exports = { foo: 'bar' };
module.exports = ['foo', 'bar'];
module.exports = function bar () {};

Exporting in ES6

Named exports:

export let name = 'Lemmy';
export let age  = 70;​​

Exporting a list of objects:

function sumTwo(a, b) {
    return a + b;
}

function sumThree(a, b, c) {
    return a + b + c;
}

export { sumTwo, sumThree };

Export functions, objects and values (etc.) simply by using the export keyword:

export function sumTwo(a, b) {
    return a + b;
}

export function sumThree(a, b, c) {
    return a + b + c;
}

Export default bindings:

function sumTwo(a, b) {
    return a + b;
}

function sumThree(a, b, c) {
    return a + b + c;
}

let api = {
    sumTwo,
    sumThree
};

export default api;

/* Which is the same as
 * export { api as default };
 */

Reference

Overview of ECMAScript 6 features