Shorthand creation of object chains in Javascript

Question

What I am interested to know is if there is a shorter way of achieving the following:

App.Plugins = App.Plugins || {};
App.Plugins.SomePlugin = App.Plugins.SomePlugin || {};
App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Models = App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Models || {};
App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Views = App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Views || {};
App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Collections = App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Collections || {};

As far as I know, this format is fine, please someone let me know if I'm mistaken, I'm just wondering if there is some nicer way of doing this initial setup on my singleton.

Thanks in advance...

Answer 1

I don't understand exactly why you do this

Anyway a shorter way to write that is:

App={
 Plugins:{
  SomePlugin:{
   Models:{},
   Views:{},
   Collections:{}
  }
 }
}

then considering the function

function defaults(obj, prop) {
    return obj[prop] = obj[prop] || {};
}

would return an error using

defaults(App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin,'Models')

checking this is a pain:

var x={};
if(App&&
   App.Plugins&&
   App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin&&
   App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin.Models
){
 x=App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin.Models
}
console.log(x);

A solution is

var x={};
try{x=App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin.Models}catch(e){}
console.log(x)

this gives you no errors

but you can't set it the easy way.

EDIT

comment answer

Then you should start checking at the point where nothing is certain. In your case you just need to check if anotherPlugin exists.you probably already have App & App.Plugins.so you don't need App=App||{}, but only App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin

!App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin||App.Plugins.AnotherPlugin=NewPlugin

or a function

function addPlugin(name,newPlugin){
 !App.Plugins[name]||App.Plugins[name]=newPlugin
}

An define your own standards... I mean why return an object if it does not exist?

if it does not exist you can't do anything anyway.

and again the biggest problem is always to check if it exists... and like i already described above it is try catch.

EDIT2

check this function.

function def(a,b,c,d){
 c=b.split('.');
 d=c.shift();
 a[d]||(a[d]={});
 !(c.length>0)||def(a[d],c.join('.'));
}

usage:

var A={};
def(A,'B.C.D.E.F')
//this transforms your {}
//to 
A:{
 B:{
  C:{
   D:{
    E:{
     F:{
     }
    }
   }
  }
 }
}

http://jsfiddle.net/5NgWL/

to create your plugin:

var App={}
def(App,'Plugins.SomePlugin.Models')
def(App.Plugins.SomePlugin,'View')
// &/or
def(App,'Plugins.SomePlugin.Collections')

Answer 2

You could do the following:

function defaults(obj, prop) {
    return obj[prop] = obj[prop] || {};
}
defaults(App, 'Plugins');
defaults(App.Plugins, 'SomePlugin');
defaults(App.Plugins.SomePlugin, 'Models');
defaults(App.Plugins.SomePlugin, 'Views');
defaults(App.Plugins.SomePlugin, 'Collections');

Answer 3

May be use it

function namespace(path) {
    var segments = path.split('.'),
        result = {};

    function define(name, obj) {

        if (name === '.') {
            return obj;
        } 

        !obj[name] && (obj[name] = {});
        return define(segments.shift(), obj[name]);
    }

    segments.push('.'); //add stop symbol;
    define(segments.shift(), result);

    return result;
}

namespace('App.Plugins.SomePlugin.Collections').controller = function() {}