ES6 function does not have access to `this` while de-structuring the Object

Question

I was trying out the below question in ES6 learning material

const circle = {
  radius: 10,
  color: 'orange',
  getArea: function() {
    return Math.PI * this.radius * this.radius;
  },
  getCircumference: function() {
    return 2 * Math.PI * this.radius;
  }
};

let {radius, getArea, getCircumference} = circle;
console.log(getArea())

At first I thought the result printed to be 314.1592653589793 but turns out the result printed is NaN. Which mean that the getArea() function does not have access to this. Why does the function do not have access to this while de-structuring the Object ?

score 7 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 21 '20 at 02:19

Destructuring is just syntactic sugar for assigning object properties to variables, so the following line:

let {radius, getArea, getCircumference} = circle;

is equivalent to:

let radius = circle.radius;
let getArea = circle.getArea;
let getCircumference = circle.getCircumference;

Here getArea is just a reference to the base-function, which doesn't include the context of circle. So your getArea variable may as well just be declared like so:

const getArea = function() {
  return Math.PI * this.radius * this.radius;
}

console.log(getArea()); // NaN

The this in the function is thus determined by the calling context of getArea when it is actually called. Since no context is provided in the above example, it defaults to the global object of the window.

You can specify the this of the getArea() function later on though by using .call():

const circle = {
  radius: 10,
  color: 'orange',
  getArea: function() {
    return Math.PI * this.radius * this.radius;
  },
  getCircumference: function() {
    return 2 * Math.PI * this.radius;
  }
};

let {radius, getArea, getCircumference} = circle;
console.log(getArea.call(circle)); // 314.1592653589793

score -1 · Answer 2 · answered Jun 21 '20 at 03:34

-1

This would work as well

 const circle = {
      radius: 10,
      color: 'orange',
      getArea() {
        return Math.PI * this.radius * this.radius;
      },
      getCircumference() {
        return 2 * Math.PI * this.radius;
      }
    };

answered Jun 21 '20 at 03:34

Berk

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short-hand method names won't make a difference here – Nick Parsons Jun 21 '20 at 04:58

ES6 function does not have access to `this` while de-structuring the Object

2 Answers2