JavaScript – Getting Function Parameter Names

Two years ago I wrote a post about how to pass arguments by name in JavaScript. Recently I have started to ramp a new project call YourJS and found a need to be able to read the names of the parameters of the given function. The following getParamNames() function takes an arbitrary function and returns an array of its parameter names:

Using this function is quite simple. Let’s say that getParamNames() and the function below are defined:

function repeat(string, times, opt_delimiter) {
  opt_delimiter = arguments.length > 2 ? opt_delimiter + '' : '';
  return new Array(times + 1).join(opt_delimiter + string).replace(opt_delimiter, '');
}

Running getParamNames(repeat) will result in the following:

>>> getParamNames(repeat)
["string", "times", "opt_delimiter"]

Running getParamNames(getParamNames) will result in the following:

>>> getParamNames(getParamNames)
["fn"]

Pretty cool, right?!?! Have fun! 😎