Extending types with native JavaScript

When a class which is annotated native is compiled to JavaScript, you can include two functions which will be called when creating new instances of that class: one before the class body is executed and one after that. Both functions are optional.

The names of these functions are $init$native$TYPE_NAME$before and $init$native$TYPE_NAME$after, where TYPE_NAME is the generated name for the type in JavaScript (see the Declaration names section of the compiler).

You can define one or both functions in a JavaScript file and include it right after the Ceylon source (or at any point after the Ceylon source containing the type´s definition). These functions will be passed one or two parameters:

• The instance being initialized,
• and the type arguments, if the type has type parameters.

Example

As a matter of fact, we use this facility of the compiler when compiling one of our own classes, the Exception class. The class is annotated native and the before hook is used to add the stack trace to new exceptions.