The brass buckles on Underscore's utility belt - a contributors' library for Underscore.
While Underscore provides a bevy of useful tools to support functional programming in JavaScript, it can't (and shouldn't) be everything to everyone. Underscore-contrib is intended as a home for functions that, for various reasons, don't belong in Underscore proper. In particular, it aims to be:
- a home for functions that are limited in scope, but solve certain point problems, and
- a proving ground for features that belong in Underscore proper, but need some advocacy and/or evolution (or devolution) to get them there.
First, you'll need Underscore version 1.6.0 or higher. Then you can grab the relevant underscore-contrib sub-libraries and simply add something like the following to your pages:
<script type="text/javascript" src="underscore.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript" src="underscore.object.builders.js"></script>At the moment there are no cross-contrib dependencies (i.e. each sub-library can stand by itself), but that may change in the future.
Using contrib in Node is very simple. Just install it with npm:
npm install underscore-contrib --save
Then require it within your project like so:
var _ = require('underscore-contrib');The _ variable will be a copy of Underscore with contrib's methods already
mixed in.
_.contrib is open sourced under the MIT license.
The _.contrib library currently contains a number of related capabilities, aggregated into the following files.
- underscore.array.builders - functions to build arrays
- underscore.array.selectors - functions to take things from arrays
- underscore.collections.walk - functions to walk and transform nested JavaScript objects
- underscore.function.arity - functions to manipulate and fix function argument arity
- underscore.function.combinators - functions to combine functions to make new functions
- underscore.function.iterators - functions to lazily produce, manipulate and consume sequence iterators
- underscore.function.predicates - functions that return
trueorfalsebased on some criteria - underscore.object.builders - functions to build JavaScript objects
- underscore.object.selectors - functions to pick things from JavaScript objects
- underscore.util.existential - functions that check for the existence or truthiness of JavaScript data types
- underscore.util.operators - functions that wrap common (or missing) JavaScript operators
- underscore.util.strings - functions to work with strings
- underscore.util.trampolines - functions to facilitate calling functions recursively without blowing the stack
- underscore.comparison.islike - a function to test objects fit simple patterns
The links above are to the annotated source code. Full-blown _.contrib documentation is in the works. Contributors welcomed.