12.2.2 ECMAScript 6 class generation

since Haxe 4.0

Starting with Haxe 4.0, Haxe can generate ES6 class definitions instead of classic function + prototype combination. This might be required when using third-party ES6 libraries, because native ES6 classes cannot be extended using the old method.

To enable ES6 generation mode, simply add -D js-es=6 to the compiler arguments.

Accessing this before calling super constructors

One of significant differences between Haxe classes and ES6 classes reveals itself when inheritance is used. ES6 does not allow accessing this in any way before calling super() within a child class constructor, while Haxe allows calling super() at any place in the constructor.

Even when we don't explicitly access this before super() in Haxe code, it can still happen when a class has fields with initializer values.

Let's take a look at the following example:

class Base {
  function new() {
    init();
  }
  function init() {
    trace("base init");
  }
}

class Child extends Base {
  var field = "hello";

  override function init() {
    trace(field);
  }
}

Haxe guarantees that the fields will be initialized before any constructor code is executed, and because accessing this (for setting the field value) before the super() call is not allowed in ES6, Haxe has to work this limitation around by transforming constructors like in the following example:

class Base {
  constructor() {
    if(Base._hx_skip_constructor) {
      return;
    }
    this._hx_constructor();
  }
  _hx_constructor() {
    this.init();
  }
  init() {
    console.log("src/Main.hx:6:","base init");
  }
}
class Child extends Base {
  constructor() {
    Base._hx_skip_constructor = true;
    super();
    Base._hx_skip_constructor = false;
    this._hx_constructor();
  }
  _hx_constructor() {
    this.field = "hello";
    super._hx_constructor();
  }
  init() {
    console.log("src/Main.hx:14:",this.field);
  }
}
Base._hx_skip_constructor = false;

Note that the compiler does its best to be smart and only generates this workaround code when it's required.

When extending extern classes with constructors

One important limitation that one has to keep in mind is that it's obviously not possible for Haxe to do these transformations on extern class implementations. That's why it is impossible to access this before calling super() at all when extending a native extern class. Haxe will detect these cases and emit a compile error pointing to first expression or field declaration that requires this access.

For example:

extern class Base {
  function new();
}

class Child extends Base {
  var field = "hello";
}

Trying to compile this will fail with the following error: Main.hx:6: characters 3-23 : Must call super() constructor before accessing this in classes derived from an extern class with constructor

However, if the parent extern class would not have a constructor defined, this code would compile, because the compiler knows that it is safe to call a parent's empty super() constructor before anything else.

So, the following code:

extern class Base {
}

class Child extends Base {
  var field = "hello";
}

Will generate the expected ES6 output:

class Child extends Base {
  constructor() {
    super();
    this.field = "hello";
  }
}

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