This is a common situation, but one easily solved by object literals.
Reflecting on the scope is confusing and would hurt tooling (it's
essentially eval).
```js
var mapping = {Polygon: Polygon};
var meshClass = mapping[ajaxData.className];
```
On Tue, Dec 8, 2015 at 9:53 PM, John Gardner <[email protected]> wrote:
> ECMAScript currently offers no clean way to "dereference" a variable in
> the current scope. For instance, assume an author wishes to obtain a
> reference to a class using a variable that holds its name:
>
> class Paintbrush{ }
>
> let className = "Paintbrush";
>
> // Would only work in browsers, not NodeJS
> console.log( window[className] );
>
> // Doesn't even work in NodeJS
> console.log( global[className] || this[className] );
>
> A hacky workaround is to create an anonymous function that simply returns
> a reference to the named variable:
>
> function dereference(name){
> return new Function([], "return " + name)();
> }
> dereference("Paintbrush") === Paintbrush; // true
>
> This isn't an elegant solution, nor a preferable one. Another approach
> might be to leverage `eval`, which opens up the obvious issues of
> performance and security.
>
> Having a way of indirectly referencing another variable would fix this:
>
> class Paintbrush{ }
>
> let className = "Paintbrush";
>
> let classReference = \className;
> console.log(classReference === Paintbrush); // true
>
> Sticking a backslash before a bareword identifier creates a reference to
> an object whose name matches the identifier's string value. If no such
> object exists in the current scope, it simply returns `undefined`.
>
> I can't see this being used in everyday programs, but it would facilitate
> Ajax programming considerably, where classes or functions can only be
> specified by name:
>
> {"className":"Polygon", "vertices": [[0,0]...] }
>
> let meshClass = \ajaxData.className;
> if(meshClass instanceof Mesh){
> new meshClass(ajaxData.vertices);
> }
>
>
>
>
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>
>
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