Clojurscript: extend a Javascript class

Question

I'm trying to use a particular JavaScript framework which requires extending a base class to use it for application.

Basically I want to do the following as idiomatic ClojureScript.

class Foo extends Bar {
  constructor() { super("data") }
  method1(args) { /* do stuff */ }
}

I tried

(defn foo
  []
  (reify
    js/Bar
    (constructor [this] (super this "data"))
    (method1 [this args] )))

Which would work if I'd create a new class from Object, but as shadow-cljs correctly complains, "Symbol js/Bar is not a protocol". Also, I don't want to add methods but create a subclass that inherits somemethods and overloads others.

I thought about using proxy, but "core/proxy is not defined".

Of course I could create an instance of Bar and set! new methods, but that feels like giving up and using an inferior language.

Answer 1

CLJS (still) has no built-in support for class ... extends ....

However in recent shadow-cljs versions I added support for class as well as extends. This will emit a standard JS class and does not require any hacky workarounds to get it working.

Translating this example

class Foo extends Bar {
  constructor() { super("data") }
  method1(args) { /* do stuff */ }
}

would be

(ns your.app
  (:require [shadow.cljs.modern :refer (defclass)]))

(defclass Foo
  ;; extends takes a symbol argument, referencing the super class
  ;; could be a local symbol such as Bar
  ;; a namespaced symbol such as alias/Bar
  ;; or just a global via js/Bar
  (extends Bar)

  (constructor [this]
    (super "data"))

  ;; adds regular method, protocols similar to deftype/defrecord also supported
  Object
  (method1 [this args]
    ;; do stuff
    ))

More complex examples of defclass can be found here and here.

Currently this only ships with shadow-cljs but technically you can take the modern.cljc and modern.cljs files from here and put them into your project. It should work with all build tools then.