Self referential can.Model

CanJS
1

I would like to create a can.Model ‘Product’ that can hold a list of Products. In pseudo coffee code:

can.Model.extend 'Product',
   resource: '/products'
,
  define:
    products:
      Value: Product.List  # "Product not defined"

This obviously doesn’t work, but I can’t figure out how to make it work. I have tried to reference ‘this.constructor’ and the like, but all has failed so far. What is the right way to do this?

2

You won’t be able to use Value in the definition because the creation of the definition object is immediate and Product is not yet defined. This is a common issue with circular dependencies between modules as well. To make it work, you can use the lowercase value and define a custom function that will defer the evaluation.

var Product = can.Model.extend({}, {
    define: {
        products: {
            value: function() {
                return new Product.List();
            }
        }
    }
});

Alternatively, you can modify prototype.define after creating the model to add Value.

Product.prototype.define.products.Value = Product.List;
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