JavaScript Getter & Setters

For an upcoming article, I'm investigating the source code to Ghost - the platform this blog (and many others) run on.

I found this code in main/core/server/web/shared/index.js among other places in the code-base.

module.exports = {
    get middlewares() {
        return require('./middlewares');
    }
};

I've got to be honest, I've not seen this in JavaScript yet; it's a getter method, obviously.

From MDN Web Docs:

The get syntax binds an object property to a function that will be called when that property is looked up.

There are also setter methods and additional information can be found here: Defining getters and setters.

Ultimately, it allows you to directly define methods that are bound to this. This is a very high-level and simplistic explanation of this syntax; please see the links for additional insight but as far as code-exploration goes, this should suffice.  

Frank Villasenor

Frank Villasenor

Owner and principal author of this site. Professional Engineering Lead, Software Engineer & Architect working in the Chicagoland area as a consultant. Cert: AWS DevOps Pro
Chicago, IL