A constructor name should start with an uppercase letter

When do I get this error?

The "A constructor name should start with an uppercase letter" error is thrown when JSLint, JSHint or ESLint encounters an identifier, preceded by the new operator, whose first character is a lowercase letter. JSHint will only raise this warning when the newcap option is set to true. In the following example we declare a constructor function myConstructor and then attempt to instantiate it:

/*jshint newcap: true */
function myConstructor() {
    "use strict";
    this.property = "Something";
}

var myInstance = new myConstructor();

Why do I get this error?

This error is raised to highlight a lack of convention. It is common practice for constructor function identifiers to begin with an uppercase letter. JSLint simply enforces this convention. Here's the above snippet rewritten to pass JSLint. Notice that the only difference is the uppercase "M":

/*jshint newcap: true */
function MyClass() {
    "use strict";
    this.property = "Something";
}

var myInstance = new MyClass();

It is worth bearing in mind that this is only a convention and is not required by the language in any way. You can safely ignore this error if you prefer to name your constructor functions differently. By setting the newcap option, you can tell JSLint to allow lowercase constructors.

In JSHint 1.0.0 and above you have the ability to ignore any warning with a special option syntax. The identifier of this warning is W055. This means you can tell JSHint to not issue this warning with the /*jshint -W055 */ directive.


About the author

James Allardice

This article was written by James Allardice, Software engineer at Tesco and orangejellyfish in London. Passionate about React, Node and writing clean and maintainable JavaScript. Uses linters (currently ESLint) every day to help achieve this.