Intercepting sets on array-like objects

[Adam Klein]

On Thu, Jun 8, 2017 at 11:32 AM, Tab Atkins Jr. <jackalmage at gmail.com>
wrote:

> Heya!  As part of designing the CSS Typed OM
> <https://drafts.css-houdini.org/css-typed-om/>, we've ended up with at
> three (so far) places where we want an interface that represents a
> list of values:
>
> * CSSUnparsedValue
> <https://drafts.css-houdini.org/css-typed-om/#unparsedvalue-objects>,
> representing alternating unparsed strings and variable references in a
> property
> * CSSNumericArray
> <https://drafts.css-houdini.org/css-typed-om/#cssnumericarray>,
> representing the n-ary arguments of sum/product/min/max operations
> * CSSTransformValue
> <https://drafts.css-houdini.org/css-typed-om/#csstransformvalue>,
> representing a list of transform functions
>
> The most natural way to represent these is as an Array, so authors can
> get all the Array methods, use `val[i]` syntax, etc.  However, doing
> so means we lose the ability to type-check sets to the values.
>
> In general, type-checking is an important part of APIs defined in
> WebIDL.  Any set to a property on an object is automatically
> type-checked, any arguments to methods are automatically type-checked,
> etc.  By building this into WebIDL, it removes the need for a lot of
> annoying boilerplate on the part of spec authors, and more
> importantly, removes the possibility that spec authors will forget to
> typecheck at all, or will typecheck in incorrect or weird bespoke
> ways.  Every API responds in exactly the same way when you pass the
> wrong type of object, and that's a Good Thing for both users and
> implementors.
>
> And so, it would be great to have the same ability to typecheck these
> Array-likes in the Typed OM.
>
> Naively, this requires a Proxy, so we can intercept uses of the []
> syntax.  However, we don't need all the rest of the Proxy
> functionality, just this one intercept - a setter function, just for
> `obj[foo]` rather than `obj.foo`.  Further, Typed Arrays already have
> *precisely* the functionality I'd like to use - they intercept setting
> using [], and convert it into the appropriate type of number.  AWB
> also proposed adding exactly this hook in the past (I think it was
> called "Array reformation" or something?).
>
> Thoughts?
>
> Note that if we don't get some variant of this functionality, these
> APIs will instead do one of:
>
> * just using Proxies (already defined in WebIDL)
>

When you say "Proxies" here, I believe you're referring to the "indexed
properties" feature of WebIDL (
https://heycam.github.io/webidl/#idl-indexed-properties). This seems like
the right mechanism to use, from a WebIDL spec, to get the behavior you
desire. In Chromium/V8, this doesn't actually use Proxies under the hood
(we have something called "indexed property handlers", see the API at
https://cs.chromium.org/chromium/src/v8/include/v8.h?rcl=ff98ddca4a1770c2868d44f1cdfe1d4656363f30&l=5781),
but it's definitely implementable using Proxies.

- Adam


> * using .get()/.set() functions with integer arguments to badly emulate
> arrays
> * just relying on iterator/constructor, so users have to convert the
> object to an Array, fiddle with it, then construct a brand new object
>
> And whichever I end up with, I'll be advocating that as the Standard
> WebIDL Way to do array-likes, so we can finally have some consistency.
>
> ~TJ
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