Stringable

A Stringable is any object that implements a custom toString() method to output itself as a string. CodeSquared uses this pattern to specify how to convert a value into output code.

For example, let's say we have an OasOperation object and we want to use to generate an HTML form. We can do it using Stringables by doing something like Form code below.

class Form {
  path: string;

  constructor(operation: OasOperation){
    this.path = operation.path;
    this.method = operation.method;
  }

  toString() {
    return `<form action="${this.operation.path}" method="${this.operation.method}">
      <button type="submit">Submit</button>
    </form>`
  }
}

Using Stringables gives several benefits

• They are easy to read since each template looks similar to the code it will output.
• They are unopinionated and let you decide how to you structure your data or your outputs.
• Object properties remain accessible. For example, we can easily get the values of path and method from a Form instance. Had we converted the operation to a string
• Stringables can be nested inside each other allowing us to compose complex code structures
• Fast