You might be interested in the work of Salman Mirghasemi on anonymous
function naming in JavaScript:
http://johnjbarton.github.com/nonymous/index.html
jjb
On Fri, Nov 16, 2012 at 11:34 AM, Aron Homberg <i...@aron-homberg.de> wrote:
> I implemented a JS parser last week (in JS) which specially parses the
> function grammar. It also analyzes the function names based on the rules
> you described, Brandon. I came to the same results when thinking about how
> function names could be detected (statically).
>
> But... there are some special cases where I wasn't able to find a good way
> to detect a function's name properly. In one case, thats because my parser
> just does a simple static parsing. Due to this, symbols are not evaluated
> by toString(), like mentioned. But that's not the end of the story, there
> are more pitfalls in practice...
>
> A) Anonymous FunctionExpression's, stored in an array:
>
> var someArray = [function() {
> // Have
> }, function() {
> // a
> }, function() {
> // lot of
> }, function() {
> // fun
> }];
>
> e.g. Sencha's Ext JS does this in their Ext.data.Connection class where
> it's used to determine which ActiveXObject instance to choose for an
> XMLHttpRequest impl. in IE (calls the function in a loop)
>
> I thought about combine sombol-name with array index, to give them a name.
> It would look like: "someArray-0", "someArray-1", etc. but somehow I don't
> really like that. Currently they are 'called': "anonymous-" + sequence++ -
> I increase this sequence with each anonymous function detected to give
> these functions a unique name (in script context).
>
> B) FunctionExpression's assigned to a symbol:
>
> var foo = {
> barFn: null
> };
>
> foo[barFn] = function() {
> // whatever
> };
>
> I faced this kind of code when parsing jQuery 1.8.1. It's hard to find a
> smart way here. The property name could be a function call too or whatever.
> So the name of the function is detected as "symbol-assigned-anonymous-" +
> sequence++ here. For sure, function name could be "foo[barFn]" too. Maybe,
> thats better for a developer in practice. With static analysis, these both
> solutions are all I can do here. But dynamic evaluation of the symbol and
> casting to a String, is too much for my static parsing algorithm.
>
> Imagine stranger situations:
>
> foo[fetchPropertyName()] = [function() {
> // no
> }, function() {
> // fun
> }];
>
> Here a static function name detection fails too. A dynamic symbol to
> String conversion can be dangerous in such a situation too, right?
>
> C) Scoped functions:
>
> (function() {
> // what's my name?
> })
>
> No chance, this one is totally anonymous, right? No matter if static or
> dynamic code analysis/parsing.
>
> -----
>
> Now in practice: (parsing jQuery 1.8.1)
>
> When I parse jQuery 1.8.1 using my parser, 511 functions get parsed and
> their names get detected correctly. 137 functions apply to one of the three
> special cases above. Most of them are symbol-assigned. Few are scoped by
> (). One additional function is being instantiated using "new
> Function('$code')". I didn't implemented a name detection for this grammar
> yet, so 138 of 511 functions are somehow "anonymous" after detecting
> function names using my static parsing algorithm.
>
> I wonder what your thoughts are regarding these special cases and my
> decision to fallback to "symbol-assigned-anonymous-" + sequence++. Would
> you prefer using the sourcecode of the symbol assignment as detected
> function name name? It would be more descriptive in practice, right?
>
> @Alex: "The name would be more useful if it could be either string or
> symbol"
> Please help me out :) The function will be assigned to the symbol, right?
> So using the symbol as name would simply be a reference to the function
> itself and equals to arguments.callee? Or did you mean the sourcecode of
> the symbol as the detected name of the function like I mentioned above?
>
> Thanks and regards,
> - Aron
>
>
> 2012/11/16 Axel Rauschmayer <a...@rauschma.de>
>
>> Whenever a function's name is defined by a Symbol instead of a regular
>> identifier then the name is the result of ToString(symbol).
>>
>>
>> Symbols don't have useful ToString conversions, do they? Are you thinking
>> of the optional string passed to the constructor, for diagnostics and
>> debugging?
>>
>>
>> The name would be more useful if it could be either string or symbol. Not
>> sure about security implications, though.
>>
>> --
>> Dr. Axel Rauschmayer
>> a...@rauschma.de
>>
>> home: rauschma.de
>> twitter: twitter.com/rauschma
>> blog: 2ality.com
>>
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> es-discuss mailing list
>> es-discuss@mozilla.org
>> https://mail.mozilla.org/listinfo/es-discuss
>>
>>
>
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