With this plugin, functions that are inheriting from base functions are provided with a specialized this._super reference to the base function from which they inherit.

This is especially useful for calling base classes' init and setup , but it can be used in any inheriting function.

The Person and Programmer examples from init demonstrate _super's use. Here's how those classes look without can.Construct.super:

var Person = Construct.extend({
 init: function(first, last) {
 this.first = first;
 this.last = last;
 }
});
var Programmer = Person.extend({
 init: function(first, last, language) {
 // call base's init
 Person.prototype.init.apply(this, arguments);
 // other initialization code
 this.language = language;
 },
 bio: function() {
 return "Hi! I'm " + this.first + " " + this.last +
 " and I write " + this.language + ".";
 }
});

And here's how Programmer works using _super:

var Programmer = Person.extend({
 init: function(first, last, language) {
 // call base's init
 this._super(first, last);
 // other initialization code
 this.language = language;
 },
 bio: function() {
 return "Hi! I'm " + this.first + " " + this.last +
 " and I write " + this.language + ".";
 }
});

If you want to pass an array of arguments (or an arguments object) to _super, use apply:

var Programmer = Person.extend({
 init: function(first, last, language) {
 // call base's init
 this._super.apply(this, arguments);
 // other initialization code
 this.language = language;
 },
 bio: function() {
 return "Hi! I'm " + this.first + " " + this.last +
 " and I write " + this.language + ".";
 }
});

_super on constructors

can.Construct.super also adds super to the constructor, so you can use it in static functions.

Here is a base class that has a method that squares numbers and an inherited class that has a method that cubes numbers:

var Squarer = can.Construct.extend({
 raise: function(n) {
 return n*n;
 }
}, {});
var Cuber = Squarer.extend({
 raise: function(n) {
 return n * this._super(n);
 }
}, {});