Detect Generator Functions with JavaScript

By  on  

In the current JavaScript climate of new syntaxes, features, and using loads of external libraries, it seems harder than ever to be sure what your functions are being given or even what the data represents. Of course, we've come up with Flow and TypeScript to help, but we can't count on those always being available. That's why I like doing my own detection with JavaScript, especially when it comes to function types.

To detect if a function is a generator or async generator function, you can use the following code:

// Sample generator function
function* sampleGenerator() {}
sampleGenerator.constructor.name
// "GeneratorFunction"

async function* sampleGenerator() {}
sampleGenerator.constructor.name
// "AsyncGeneratorFunction"

Coincidentally, you can also detect a regular async function with:

async function asyncThing() {}
asyncThing.constructor.name
// "AsyncFunction"

It's always important to know if the code you're using is sync, async, or a generator, but if you're using external libraries or want to write comprehensive tests, these types of detections may be necessary.

Recent Features

  • By
    5 Ways that CSS and JavaScript Interact That You May Not Know About

    CSS and JavaScript:  the lines seemingly get blurred by each browser release.  They have always done a very different job but in the end they are both front-end technologies so they need do need to work closely.  We have our .js files and our .css, but...

  • By
    An Interview with Eric Meyer

    Your early CSS books were instrumental in pushing my love for front end technologies. What was it about CSS that you fell in love with and drove you to write about it? At first blush, it was the simplicity of it as compared to the table-and-spacer...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    TextboxList for MooTools and jQuery by Guillermo Rauch

    I'll be honest with you: I still haven't figured out if I like my MooTools teammate Guillermo Rauch. He's got a lot stacked up against him. He's from Argentina so I get IM'ed about 10 times a day about how great Lionel...

  • By
    Facebook Open Graph META Tags

    It's no secret that Facebook has become a major traffic driver for all types of websites.  Nowadays even large corporations steer consumers toward their Facebook pages instead of the corporate websites directly.  And of course there are Facebook "Like" and "Recommend" widgets on every website.  One...

Discussion

    Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!