I would like to know if there is a way to return a JS class's value by default instead of of reference to the class object itself. Let's say, for example, I want to wrap a string..

var StringWrapper = function(string) {
    this.string = string;
};

StringWrapper.prototype.contains = function (string) {
    if (this.string.indexOf(string) >= 0)
        return true;
    return false;
};

var myString = new StringWrapper("hey there");

if(myString.contains("hey"))
   alert(myString); // should alert "hey there"

if(myString == "hey there") // should be true
   doSomething();

and now I want to get string just by using myString rather than myString.string. Is this doable somehow?

Edit

I took the console.log(myString) out of the question, because console.log has behavior that I didn't originally take into account. This question isn't about log.

I would like to know if there is a way to return a JS class's value by default instead of of reference to the class object itself. Let's say, for example, I want to wrap a string..

var StringWrapper = function(string) {
    this.string = string;
};

StringWrapper.prototype.contains = function (string) {
    if (this.string.indexOf(string) >= 0)
        return true;
    return false;
};

var myString = new StringWrapper("hey there");

if(myString.contains("hey"))
   alert(myString); // should alert "hey there"

if(myString == "hey there") // should be true
   doSomething();

and now I want to get string just by using myString rather than myString.string. Is this doable somehow?

Edit

I took the console.log(myString) out of the question, because console.log has behavior that I didn't originally take into account. This question isn't about log.

• javascript

Share Improve this question Follow edited Sep 6, 2021 at 16:01 tarrball asked Mar 31, 2015 at 14:28 tarrballtarrball 2,30833 gold badges2525 silver badges3737 bronze badges 16

• means do you want to get that value in console.log ?? – Mritunjay Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 14:30
• 2 Do you really have to use the new MyClass() construct? It sounds like a "normal" function would work better. – JJJ Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 14:30
• 2 We get that it's just an example, but based on that example you'd be better off using just a simple function to return the value, or if that doesn't work for you then the example doesn't really represent your actual problem so it's very hard to say what you actually need. – JJJ Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 14:38
• 2 @Andy What is a little example? You haven't given us any example of what you want to do. – JLRishe Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 14:39
• 1 You're again stopping short of showing the most important part... an example that shows the circumstance in which you actually need to get the string value... or is it truly just for logging to the console? – user1106925 Commented Mar 31, 2015 at 14:55

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1 Answer 1

Sorted by: Reset to default 8

Your question doesn't entirely make sense, but it kind of sounds like you want to implement the .toString interface:

var MyClass = function(value) {
  this.value = value;
};

MyClass.prototype.toString = function() {
  return this.value;
};


var classObj = new MyClass("hey there");

snippet.log(classObj);
snippet.log(classObj + "!");

<!-- Provides the `snippet` object, see http://meta.stackexchange./a/242144/134069 -->
<script src="http://tjcrowder.github.io/simple-snippets-console/snippet.js"></script>

With ES6 class syntax:

class MyClass {
    constructor(value) {
        this.value = value;
    }

    toString() {
        return this.value;
    }
}

var classObj = new MyClass("hey there");

console.log(classObj);
console.log(classObj + "!");