We Keep Coding

Efficient way to have an Array from differing variable type

It's not really a problem, but I like to improve my JavaScript/ES6 skills.
I'm trying to find a more efficient way to always have an array, no matter if my incoming variable has just a single value or an array.
What I'm currently doing is:
var inp;
// just for the showcase
if (Math.random() > 0.5) {
inp = 'foo';
} else {
inp = ['foo', 'bar'];
}
// this is what I want to optimize
if (Array.isArray(inp)) {
outp = inp;
} else {
outp = [inp];
}
console.log(outp);
I'm not talking just shortening the code at any price, but effiency and maybe elegance.

You can skip this isArray check with using concat:
const outp = [].concat(inp);
It'll always give you an array with elements (not nested):
[].concat('foo')
// ['foo']
[].concat(['foo'])
// ['foo']

How about testing it? Here is a jsperf for you: https://jsperf.com/dynamic-array-creation
instanceof seems to be the most efficient way.

Many approaches are possible. Depending on how accurate you wan't you detection to be. A quick example:
var outp = Array.isArray(inp) ? inp : in[];
Which is nothing more than a shorthand for your code.
You should ask yourself if this is desirable. If you have function that expects an array but gets a string as input. Should it even continue? Many interfaces provide different explicit methods for this. E.g.: add(array) and addOne(string)

You can concat empty array [] if Math.random is less than 0.5
["foo"].concat( Math.random > 0.5 ? "bar" : [] )

Counting length of Objects in JavaScript [duplicate]

What's the fastest way to count the number of keys/properties of an object? Is it possible to do this without iterating over the object? I.e., without doing:
var count = 0;
for (k in myobj) if (myobj.hasOwnProperty(k)) ++count;
(Firefox did provide a magic __count__ property, but this was removed somewhere around version 4.)

To do this in any ES5-compatible environment, such as Node.js, Chrome, Internet Explorer 9+, Firefox 4+, or Safari 5+:
Object.keys(obj).length
Browser compatibility
Object.keys documentation (includes a method you can add to non-ES5 browsers)

You could use this code:
if (!Object.keys) {
Object.keys = function (obj) {
var keys = [],
k;
for (k in obj) {
if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(obj, k)) {
keys.push(k);
}
}
return keys;
};
}
Then you can use this in older browsers as well:
var len = Object.keys(obj).length;

If you are using Underscore.js you can use _.size (thanks douwe):
_.size(obj)
Alternatively you can also use _.keys which might be clearer for some:
_.keys(obj).length
I highly recommend Underscore.js. It's a tight library for doing lots of basic things. Whenever possible, they match ECMAScript 5 and defer to the native implementation.
Otherwise I support Avi Flax' answer. I edited it to add a link to the MDC documentation which includes the keys() method you can add to non-ECMAScript 5 browsers.

The standard Object implementation (ES5.1 Object Internal Properties and Methods) does not require an Object to track its number of keys/properties, so there should be no standard way to determine the size of an Object without explicitly or implicitly iterating over its keys.
So here are the most commonly used alternatives:
1. ECMAScript's Object.keys()
Object.keys(obj).length; Works by internally iterating over the keys to compute a temporary array and returns its length.
Pros - Readable and clean syntax. No library or custom code required except a shim if native support is unavailable
Cons - Memory overhead due to the creation of the array.
2. Library-based solutions
Many library-based examples elsewhere in this topic are useful idioms in the context of their library. From a performance viewpoint, however, there is nothing to gain compared to a perfect no-library code since all those library methods actually encapsulate either a for-loop or ES5 Object.keys (native or shimmed).
3. Optimizing a for-loop
The slowest part of such a for-loop is generally the .hasOwnProperty() call, because of the function call overhead. So when I just want the number of entries of a JSON object, I just skip the .hasOwnProperty() call if I know that no code did nor will extend Object.prototype.
Otherwise, your code could be very slightly optimized by making k local (var k) and by using prefix-increment operator (++count) instead of postfix.
var count = 0;
for (var k in myobj) if (myobj.hasOwnProperty(k)) ++count;
Another idea relies on caching the hasOwnProperty method:
var hasOwn = Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty;
var count = 0;
for (var k in myobj) if (hasOwn.call(myobj, k)) ++count;
Whether this is faster or not on a given environment is a question of benchmarking. Very limited performance gain can be expected anyway.

Here are some performance tests for three methods;
https://jsperf.com/get-the-number-of-keys-in-an-object
Object.keys().length
20,735 operations per second
It is very simple and compatible and runs fast but expensive, because it creates a new array of keys, which then gets thrown away.
return Object.keys(objectToRead).length;
Loop through the keys
15,734 operations per second
let size=0;
for(let k in objectToRead) {
size++
}
return size;
It is slightly slower, but nowhere near the memory usage, so it is probably better if you're interested in optimising for mobile or other small machines.
Using Map instead of Object
953,839,338 operations per second
return mapToRead.size;
Basically, Map tracks its own size, so we're just returning a number field. It is far, far faster than any other method. If you have control of the object, convert them to maps instead.

If you are actually running into a performance problem I would suggest wrapping the calls that add/remove properties to/from the object with a function that also increments/decrements an appropriately named (size?) property.
You only need to calculate the initial number of properties once and move on from there. If there isn't an actual performance problem, don't bother. Just wrap that bit of code in a function getNumberOfProperties(object) and be done with it.

As answered in a previous answer: Object.keys(obj).length
But: as we have now a real Map class in ES6, I would suggest to use it instead of using the properties of an object.
const map = new Map();
map.set("key", "value");
map.size; // THE fastest way

this works for both, Arrays and Objects
//count objects/arrays
function count(obj){
return Object.keys(obj).length
}
count objects/arrays with a Loop
function count(obj){
var x=0;
for(k in obj){
x++;
}
return x;
}
count objects/arrays or also the length of a String
function count(obj){
if (typeof (obj) === 'string' || obj instanceof String)
{
return obj.toString().length;
}
return Object.keys(obj).length
}

As stated by Avi Flax,
Object.keys(obj).length
will do the trick for all enumerable properties on your object, but to also include the non-enumerable properties, you can instead use the Object.getOwnPropertyNames. Here's the difference:
var myObject = new Object();
Object.defineProperty(myObject, "nonEnumerableProp", {
enumerable: false
});
Object.defineProperty(myObject, "enumerableProp", {
enumerable: true
});
console.log(Object.getOwnPropertyNames(myObject).length); //outputs 2
console.log(Object.keys(myObject).length); //outputs 1
console.log(myObject.hasOwnProperty("nonEnumerableProp")); //outputs true
console.log(myObject.hasOwnProperty("enumerableProp")); //outputs true
console.log("nonEnumerableProp" in myObject); //outputs true
console.log("enumerableProp" in myObject); //outputs true
As stated here, this has the same browser support as Object.keys.
However, in most cases, you might not want to include the nonenumerables in these type of operations, but it's always good to know the difference ;)

To iterate on Avi Flax' answer, Object.keys(obj).length is correct for an object that doesn’t have functions tied to it.
Example:
obj = {"lol": "what", owo: "pfft"};
Object.keys(obj).length; // should be 2
versus
arr = [];
obj = {"lol": "what", owo: "pfft"};
obj.omg = function(){
_.each(obj, function(a){
arr.push(a);
});
};
Object.keys(obj).length; // should be 3 because it looks like this
/* obj === {"lol": "what", owo: "pfft", omg: function(){_.each(obj, function(a){arr.push(a);});}} */
Steps to avoid this:
do not put functions in an object that you want to count the number of keys in
use a separate object or make a new object specifically for functions (if you want to count how many functions there are in the file using Object.keys(obj).length)
Also, yes, I used the _ or Underscore.js module from Node.js in my example.
Documentation can be found here as well as its source on GitHub and various other information.
And finally a lodash implementation https://lodash.com/docs#size
_.size(obj)

I'm not aware of any way to do this. However, to keep the iterations to a minimum, you could try checking for the existence of __count__ and if it doesn't exist (i.e., not Firefox) then you could iterate over the object and define it for later use, e.g.:
if (myobj.__count__ === undefined) {
myobj.__count__ = ...
}
This way, any browser supporting __count__ would use that, and iterations would only be carried out for those which don't. If the count changes and you can't do this, you could always make it a function:
if (myobj.__count__ === undefined) {
myobj.__count__ = function() { return ... }
myobj.__count__.toString = function() { return this(); }
}
This way, any time you reference myobj.__count__ the function will fire and recalculate.

From Object.defineProperty():
Object.defineProperty(obj, prop, descriptor)
You can either add it to all your objects:
Object.defineProperty(Object.prototype, "length", {
enumerable: false,
get: function() {
return Object.keys(this).length;
}
});
Or a single object:
var myObj = {};
Object.defineProperty(myObj, "length", {
enumerable: false,
get: function() {
return Object.keys(this).length;
}
});
Example:
var myObj = {};
myObj.name = "John Doe";
myObj.email = "leaked#example.com";
myObj.length; // Output: 2
Added that way, it won't be displayed in for..in loops:
for(var i in myObj) {
console.log(i + ": " + myObj[i]);
}
Output:
name: John Doe
email: leaked#example.com
Note: it does not work in browsers before Internet Explorer 9.

For those who have Underscore.js included in their project you can do:
_({a:'', b:''}).size() // => 2
or functional style:
_.size({a:'', b:''}) // => 2

How I've solved this problem is to build my own implementation of a basic list which keeps a record of how many items are stored in the object. It’s very simple. Something like this:
function BasicList()
{
var items = {};
this.count = 0;
this.add = function(index, item)
{
items[index] = item;
this.count++;
}
this.remove = function (index)
{
delete items[index];
this.count--;
}
this.get = function(index)
{
if (undefined === index)
return items;
else
return items[index];
}
}

For those that have Ext JS 4 in their project, you can do:
Ext.Object.getSize(myobj);
The advantage of this is that it'll work on all Ext JS compatible browsers (Internet Explorer 6 - Internet Explorer 8 included). However, I believe the running time is no better than O(n) though, as with other suggested solutions.

You can use:
Object.keys(objectName).length;
and
Object.values(objectName).length;

The OP didn't specify if the object is a nodeList. If it is, then you can just use the length method on it directly. Example:
buttons = document.querySelectorAll('[id=button)) {
console.log('Found ' + buttons.length + ' on the screen');

If jQuery in previous answers does not work, then try
$(Object.Item).length

I try to make it available to all objects like this:
Object.defineProperty(Object.prototype,
"length",
{
get() {
if (!Object.keys) {
Object.keys = function (obj) {
var keys = [],k;
for (k in obj) {
if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(obj, k)) {
keys.push(k);
}
}
return keys;
};
}
return Object.keys(this).length;
},});
console.log({"Name":"Joe", "Age":26}.length) // Returns 2

Javascript: How can I transform an array?

I have this on a javascript var: (it's a http returned data, and I don't know if it's an array or string - (how can we see that?) - Update: using typeof returned "string", so it's a string.
[{"nomeDominio":"gggg.fa"},{"nomeDominio":"rarar.fa"}]
How can we pass/transform that, into something like this:
["gggg.fa","rarar.fa"]
?
Thanks a lot,
MEM

You can figure out if is a string or an already parsed object by checking the type of your variable, e.g.:
ajax('url', function (response) {
alert(typeof response);
});
You will now figure out if it's a "string" or an Array "object".
If it's a string, you can use the JSON.parse method as #alcuadrado suggest, otherwise you can simply use the array.
Several answers suggest the use of the for-in statement to iterate over the array elements, I would discourage you to use it for that.
The for-in statement should be used to enumerate over object properties, to iterate over Arrays or Array-like objects, use a sequential loop as #Ken Redler suggests.
You should really avoid for-in for this purpose because:
The order of enumeration is not guaranteed, properties may not be visited in the numeric order.
Enumerates also inherited properties.
You can also use the Array.prototype.map method to meet your requirements:
var response = [{"nomeDominio":"gggg.fa"},{"nomeDominio":"rarar.fa"}];
var array = response.map(function (item) { return item.nomeDominio; });
// ["gggg.fa", "rarar.fa"]

This question is strongly related with this one.
I would suggest reading my answer there, as it would really help; and with a little variation, it would just work:
var responseString = '[{"nomeDominio":"gggg.fa"},{"nomeDominio":"rarar.fa"}]',
responseObject = JSON.parse(responseString),
nombresDeDominio = [];
for(var i in responseObject) {
nombresDeDominio.push(responseObject[i].nomeDominio)
}
Suerte!

Assuming your data always looks like that, you can do something like this:
var foo = [{"nomeDominio":"gggg.fa"},{"nomeDominio":"rarar.fa"}];
var newarr = [];
for ( var i=0,j=foo.length;i<j;i++ ) {
newarr.push( foo[i]['nomeDominio'] );
}
Here's a working fiddle.

function transform(array, f) {
var ret = [];
$.each(array, function(index) {
var v = f.call(this, index);
if(v) {
ret.push(v);
}
});
return ret;
}
var result = transform(
[{"nomeDominio":"gggg.fa"},{"nomeDominio":"rarar.fa"}],
function() { return this.nomeDominio; }
);
alert(result.toString());

it's a http returned data, and I don't
know if it's an array or string
It's JSON, and you can use it directly in JavaScript.
If you transform it into your array, you will lose the association key / value ; are you sure it's what you want ?

Okay, firstly to get the type of a "thing", use the "typeof" operator (note that the type of an array is an object, not 'array'!):
var a = "string";
var b = 1;
var c = new Array();
alert(typeof(a)); // string
alert(typeof(b)); // number
alert(typeof(c)); // object
To get at the values in the associative array (assuming it is one), you can just loop through it, like so:
var d = [{"nomeDominio":"gggg.fa"},{"nomeDominio":"rarar.fa"}];
d["bob"] = "alice";
d["gary"] = "stephen";
for(var key in d) {
alert(d[key]);
}

JavaScript Array Iteration returning more than values

This is so simple I am baffled. I have the following:
var x = 'shrimp';
var stypes = new Array('shrimp', 'crabs', 'oysters', 'fin_fish', 'crawfish', 'alligator');
for (t in stypes) {
if (stypes[t] != x) {
alert(stypes[t]);
}
}
Once the values have iterated it starts returning a dozen functions like
function (iterator, context) {
var index = 0;
iterator = iterator.bind(context);
try {
this._each(function (value) {iterator(value, index++);});
} catch (e) {
if (e != $break) {
throw e;
}
}
return this;
}
What the heck is going on?
Edit: In these scripts I am using http://script.aculo.us/prototype.js and http://script.aculo.us/scriptaculous.js I remember now reading about the way prototype extends arrays and I am betting this is part of it. How do I deal with it?

The for enumeration is going to go over every member of the object you passed it. In this case an array, which happens to have functions as members as well as the elements passed.
You could re-write your for loop to check if typeof stypes[t] == "function" or yada yada. But IMO you are better off just modifying your looping to only elements..
for(var i = 0, t; t = stypes[i]; ++i){
if (t != x) {
alert(t);
}
}
Or
for(var i = 0; i < stypes.length; ++i){
if (stypes[i] != x) {
alert(stypes[i]);
}
}
I wanted to migrate my last comment up to the answer to add the notice of the a caveat for the first type of loop.
from Simon Willison's "A re-introduction to JavaScript"..
for (var i = 0, item; item = a[i]; i++) {
// Do something with item
}
Here we are setting up two variables.
The assignment in the middle part of
the for loop is also tested for
truthfulness - if it succeeds, the
loop continues. Since i is incremented
each time, items from the array will
be assigned to item in sequential
order. The loop stops when a "falsy"
item is found (such as undefined).
Note that this trick should only be
used for arrays which you know do not
contain "falsy" values (arrays of
objects or DOM nodes for example). If
you are iterating over numeric data
that might include a 0 or string data
that might include the empty string
you should use the i, j idiom instead.

you want to do:
for (var i in object) {
if (!object.hasOwnProperty(i))
continue;
... do stuff ...
}
As for..in enumeration iterates over all properties (enumerable or otherwise) that exist on both the object and its prototype chain. The hasOwnProperty check restricts iteration to just those properties on the actual object you want to enumerate.
ES5 makes things a little better for library developers (and help avoid this stuff) but we won't see that ina shipping browser for quite a while :-(
[edit: replacing return with continue. lalalalala ;) ]

Since prototype has extended the array for your convenience you should take advantage of it. Your example could be rewritten as:
var x = 'shrimp';
var stypes = new Array('shrimp', 'crabs', 'oysters', 'fin_fish', 'crawfish', 'alligator');
stypes.without(x).each(alert);

It should be
for (t in stypes) {
if (t != x) {
alert(t);
}
}

Is there hash code function accepting any object type?

Basically, I'm trying to create an object of unique objects, a set. I had the brilliant idea of just using a JavaScript object with objects for the property names. Such as,
set[obj] = true;
This works, up to a point. It works great with string and numbers, but with other objects, they all seem to "hash" to the same value and access the same property. Is there some kind of way I can generate a unique hash value for an object? How do strings and numbers do it, can I override the same behavior?

If you want a hashCode() function like Java's in JavaScript, that is yours:
function hashCode(string){
var hash = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < string.length; i++) {
var code = string.charCodeAt(i);
hash = ((hash<<5)-hash)+code;
hash = hash & hash; // Convert to 32bit integer
}
return hash;
}
That is the way of implementation in Java (bitwise operator).
Please note that hashCode could be positive and negative, and that's normal, see HashCode giving negative values. So, you could consider to use Math.abs() along with this function.

JavaScript objects can only use strings as keys (anything else is converted to a string).
You could, alternatively, maintain an array which indexes the objects in question, and use its index string as a reference to the object. Something like this:
var ObjectReference = [];
ObjectReference.push(obj);
set['ObjectReference.' + ObjectReference.indexOf(obj)] = true;
Obviously it's a little verbose, but you could write a couple of methods that handle it and get and set all willy nilly.
Edit:
Your guess is fact -- this is defined behaviour in JavaScript -- specifically a toString conversion occurs meaning that you can can define your own toString function on the object that will be used as the property name. - olliej
This brings up another interesting point; you can define a toString method on the objects you want to hash, and that can form their hash identifier.

The easiest way to do this is to give each of your objects its own unique toString method:
(function() {
var id = 0;
/*global MyObject */
MyObject = function() {
this.objectId = '<#MyObject:' + (id++) + '>';
this.toString= function() {
return this.objectId;
};
};
})();
I had the same problem and this solved it perfectly for me with minimal fuss, and was a lot easier that re-implementing some fatty Java style Hashtable and adding equals() and hashCode() to your object classes. Just make sure that you don't also stick a string '<#MyObject:12> into your hash or it will wipe out the entry for your exiting object with that id.
Now all my hashes are totally chill. I also just posted a blog entry a few days ago about this exact topic.

What you described is covered by Harmony WeakMaps, part of the ECMAScript 6 specification (next version of JavaScript). That is: a set where the keys can be anything (including undefined) and is non-enumerable.
This means it's impossible to get a reference to a value unless you have a direct reference to the key (any object!) that links to it. It's important for a bunch of engine implementation reasons relating to efficiency and garbage collection, but it's also super cool for in that it allows for new semantics like revokable access permissions and passing data without exposing the data sender.
From MDN:
var wm1 = new WeakMap(),
wm2 = new WeakMap();
var o1 = {},
o2 = function(){},
o3 = window;
wm1.set(o1, 37);
wm1.set(o2, "azerty");
wm2.set(o1, o2); // A value can be anything, including an object or a function.
wm2.set(o3, undefined);
wm2.set(wm1, wm2); // Keys and values can be any objects. Even WeakMaps!
wm1.get(o2); // "azerty"
wm2.get(o2); // Undefined, because there is no value for o2 on wm2.
wm2.get(o3); // Undefined, because that is the set value.
wm1.has(o2); // True
wm2.has(o2); // False
wm2.has(o3); // True (even if the value itself is 'undefined').
wm1.has(o1); // True
wm1.delete(o1);
wm1.has(o1); // False
WeakMaps are available in current Firefox, Chrome and Edge. They're also supported in Node v7 , and in v6 with the --harmony-weak-maps flag.

The solution I chose is similar to Daniel's, but rather than use an object factory and override the toString, I explicitly add the hash to the object when it is first requested through a getHashCode function. A little messy, but better for my needs :)
Function.prototype.getHashCode = (function(id) {
return function() {
if (!this.hashCode) {
this.hashCode = '<hash|#' + (id++) + '>';
}
return this.hashCode;
}
}(0));

For my specific situation I only care about the equality of the object as far as keys and primitive values go. The solution that worked for me was converting the object to its JSON representation and using that as the hash. There are limitations such as order of key definition potentially being inconsistent; but like I said it worked for me because these objects were all being generated in one place.
var hashtable = {};
var myObject = {a:0,b:1,c:2};
var hash = JSON.stringify(myObject);
// '{"a":0,"b":1,"c":2}'
hashtable[hash] = myObject;
// {
// '{"a":0,"b":1,"c":2}': myObject
// }

I put together a small JavaScript module a while ago to produce hashcodes for strings, objects, arrays, etc. (I just committed it to GitHub :) )
Usage:
Hashcode.value("stackoverflow")
// -2559914341
Hashcode.value({ 'site' : "stackoverflow" })
// -3579752159

In ECMAScript 6 there's now a Set that works how you'd like: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Set
It's already available in the latest Chrome, FF, and IE11.

The JavaScript specification defines indexed property access as performing a toString conversion on the index name. For example,
myObject[myProperty] = ...;
is the same as
myObject[myProperty.toString()] = ...;
This is necessary as in JavaScript
myObject["someProperty"]
is the same as
myObject.someProperty
And yes, it makes me sad as well :-(

Based on the title, we can generate strong SHA hashes, in a browser context, it can be used to generate a unique hash from an object, an array of params, a string, or whatever.
async function H(m) {
const msgUint8 = new TextEncoder().encode(m)
const hashBuffer = await crypto.subtle.digest('SHA-256', msgUint8)
const hashArray = Array.from(new Uint8Array(hashBuffer))
const hashHex = hashArray.map(b => b.toString(16).padStart(2, '0')).join('')
console.log(hashHex)
}
/* Examples ----------------------- */
H("An obscure ....")
H(JSON.stringify( {"hello" : "world"} ))
H(JSON.stringify( [54,51,54,47] ))
The above output in my browser, it should be equal for you too:
bf1cf3fe6975fe382ab392ec1dd42009380614be03d489f23601c11413cfca2b
93a23971a914e5eacbf0a8d25154cda309c3c1c72fbb9914d47c60f3cb681588
d2f209e194045604a3b15bdfd7502898a0e848e4603c5a818bd01da69c00ad19
Supported algos:
SHA-1 (but don't use this in cryptographic applications)
SHA-256
SHA-384
SHA-512
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/API/SubtleCrypto/digest#Converting_a_digest_to_a_hex_string
However, for a simple FAST checksum hash function, made only for collision avoidance, see CRC32 (Content Redundancy Check)
JavaScript CRC32
You might also be interested by this similar method to generate HMAC codes via the web crypto api.

Reference: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Symbol
you can use Es6 symbol to create unique key and access object.
Every symbol value returned from Symbol() is unique. A symbol value may be used as an identifier for object properties; this is the data type's only purpose.
var obj = {};
obj[Symbol('a')] = 'a';
obj[Symbol.for('b')] = 'b';
obj['c'] = 'c';
obj.d = 'd';

Here's my simple solution that returns a unique integer.
function hashcode(obj) {
var hc = 0;
var chars = JSON.stringify(obj).replace(/\{|\"|\}|\:|,/g, '');
var len = chars.length;
for (var i = 0; i < len; i++) {
// Bump 7 to larger prime number to increase uniqueness
hc += (chars.charCodeAt(i) * 7);
}
return hc;
}

My solution introduces a static function for the global Object object.
(function() {
var lastStorageId = 0;
this.Object.hash = function(object) {
var hash = object.__id;
if (!hash)
hash = object.__id = lastStorageId++;
return '#' + hash;
};
}());
I think this is more convenient with other object manipulating functions in JavaScript.

I will try to go a little deeper than other answers.
Even if JS had better hashing support it would not magically hash everything perfectly, in many cases you will have to define your own hash function. For example Java has good hashing support, but you still have to think and do some work.
One problem is with the term hash/hashcode ... there is cryptographic hashing and non-cryptographic hashing. The other problem, is you have to understand why hashing is useful and how it works.
When we talk about hashing in JavaScript or Java most of the time we are talking about non-cryptographic hashing, usually about hashing for hashmap/hashtable (unless we are working on authentication or passwords, which you could be doing server-side using NodeJS ...).
It depends on what data you have and what you want to achieve.
Your data has some natural "simple" uniqueness:
The hash of an integer is ... the integer, as it is unique, lucky you !
The hash of a string ... it depends on the string, if the string represents a unique identifier, you may consider it as a hash (so no hashing needed).
Anything which is indirectly pretty much a unique integer is the simplest case
This will respect: hashcode equal if objects are equal
Your data has some natural "composite" uniqueness:
For example with a person object, you may compute a hash using firstname, lastname, birthdate, ... see how Java does it: Good Hash Function for Strings, or use some other ID info that is cheap and unique enough for your usecase
You have no idea what your data will be:
Good luck ... you could serialize to string and hash it Java style, but that may be expensive if the string is large and it will not avoid collisions as well as say the hash of an integer (self).
There is no magically efficient hashing technique for unknown data, in some cases it is quite easy, in other cases you may have to think twice. So even if JavaScript/ECMAScript adds more support, there is no magic language solution for this problem.
In practice you need two things: enough uniqueness, enough speed
In addition to that it is great to have: "hashcode equal if objects are equal"
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hash_table#Collision_resolution
Relationship between hashCode and equals method in Java

I combined the answers from eyelidlessness and KimKha.
The following is an angularjs service and it supports numbers, strings, and objects.
exports.Hash = () => {
let hashFunc;
function stringHash(string, noType) {
let hashString = string;
if (!noType) {
hashString = `string${string}`;
}
var hash = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < hashString.length; i++) {
var character = hashString.charCodeAt(i);
hash = ((hash<<5)-hash)+character;
hash = hash & hash; // Convert to 32bit integer
}
return hash;
}
function objectHash(obj, exclude) {
if (exclude.indexOf(obj) > -1) {
return undefined;
}
let hash = '';
const keys = Object.keys(obj).sort();
for (let index = 0; index < keys.length; index += 1) {
const key = keys[index];
const keyHash = hashFunc(key);
const attrHash = hashFunc(obj[key], exclude);
exclude.push(obj[key]);
hash += stringHash(`object${keyHash}${attrHash}`, true);
}
return stringHash(hash, true);
}
function Hash(unkType, exclude) {
let ex = exclude;
if (ex === undefined) {
ex = [];
}
if (!isNaN(unkType) && typeof unkType !== 'string') {
return unkType;
}
switch (typeof unkType) {
case 'object':
return objectHash(unkType, ex);
default:
return stringHash(String(unkType));
}
}
hashFunc = Hash;
return Hash;
};
Example Usage:
Hash('hello world'), Hash('hello world') == Hash('hello world')
Hash({hello: 'hello world'}), Hash({hello: 'hello world'}) == Hash({hello: 'hello world'})
Hash({hello: 'hello world', goodbye: 'adios amigos'}), Hash({hello: 'hello world', goodbye: 'adios amigos'}) == Hash({goodbye: 'adios amigos', hello: 'hello world'})
Hash(['hello world']), Hash(['hello world']) == Hash(['hello world'])
Hash(1), Hash(1) == Hash(1)
Hash('1'), Hash('1') == Hash('1')
Output
432700947 true
-411117486 true
1725787021 true
-1585332251 true
1 true
-1881759168 true
Explanation
As you can see the heart of the service is the hash function created by KimKha.I have added types to the strings so that the sturucture of the object would also impact the final hash value.The keys are hashed to prevent array|object collisions.
eyelidlessness object comparision is used to prevent infinit recursion by self referencing objects.
Usage
I created this service so that I could have an error service that is accessed with objects. So that one service can register an error with a given object and another can determine if any errors were found.
ie
JsonValidation.js
ErrorSvc({id: 1, json: '{attr: "not-valid"}'}, 'Invalid Json Syntax - key not double quoted');
UserOfData.js
ErrorSvc({id: 1, json: '{attr: "not-valid"}'});
This would return:
['Invalid Json Syntax - key not double quoted']
While
ErrorSvc({id: 1, json: '{"attr": "not-valid"}'});
This would return
[]

If you truly want set behavior (I'm going by Java knowledge), then you will be hard pressed to find a solution in JavaScript. Most developers will recommend a unique key to represent each object, but this is unlike set, in that you can get two identical objects each with a unique key. The Java API does the work of checking for duplicate values by comparing hash code values, not keys, and since there is no hash code value representation of objects in JavaScript, it becomes almost impossible to do the same. Even the Prototype JS library admits this shortcoming, when it says:
"Hash can be thought of as an
associative array, binding unique keys
to values (which are not necessarily
unique)..."
http://www.prototypejs.org/api/hash

In addition to eyelidlessness's answer, here is a function that returns a reproducible, unique ID for any object:
var uniqueIdList = [];
function getConstantUniqueIdFor(element) {
// HACK, using a list results in O(n), but how do we hash e.g. a DOM node?
if (uniqueIdList.indexOf(element) < 0) {
uniqueIdList.push(element);
}
return uniqueIdList.indexOf(element);
}
As you can see it uses a list for look-up which is very inefficient, however that's the best I could find for now.

If you want to use objects as keys you need to overwrite their toString Method, as some already mentioned here. The hash functions that were used are all fine, but they only work for the same objects not for equal objects.
I've written a small library that creates hashes from objects, which you can easily use for this purpose. The objects can even have a different order, the hashes will be the same. Internally you can use different types for your hash (djb2, md5, sha1, sha256, sha512, ripemd160).
Here is a small example from the documentation:
var hash = require('es-hash');
// Save data in an object with an object as a key
Object.prototype.toString = function () {
return '[object Object #'+hash(this)+']';
}
var foo = {};
foo[{bar: 'foo'}] = 'foo';
/*
* Output:
* foo
* undefined
*/
console.log(foo[{bar: 'foo'}]);
console.log(foo[{}]);
The package can be used either in browser and in Node-Js.
Repository: https://bitbucket.org/tehrengruber/es-js-hash

If you want to have unique values in a lookup object you can do something like this:
Creating a lookup object
var lookup = {};
Setting up the hashcode function
function getHashCode(obj) {
var hashCode = '';
if (typeof obj !== 'object')
return hashCode + obj;
for (var prop in obj) // No hasOwnProperty needed
hashCode += prop + getHashCode(obj[prop]); // Add key + value to the result string
return hashCode;
}
Object
var key = getHashCode({ 1: 3, 3: 7 });
// key = '1337'
lookup[key] = true;
Array
var key = getHashCode([1, 3, 3, 7]);
// key = '01132337'
lookup[key] = true;
Other types
var key = getHashCode('StackOverflow');
// key = 'StackOverflow'
lookup[key] = true;
Final result
{ 1337: true, 01132337: true, StackOverflow: true }
Do note that getHashCode doesn't return any value when the object or array is empty
getHashCode([{},{},{}]);
// '012'
getHashCode([[],[],[]]);
// '012'
This is similar to #ijmacd solution only getHashCode doesn't has the JSON dependency.

Just use hidden secret property with the defineProperty enumerable: false
It work very fast:
The first read uniqueId: 1,257,500 ops/s
All others: 309,226,485 ops/s
var nextObjectId = 1
function getNextObjectId() {
return nextObjectId++
}
var UNIQUE_ID_PROPERTY_NAME = '458d576952bc489ab45e98ac7f296fd9'
function getObjectUniqueId(object) {
if (object == null) {
return null
}
var id = object[UNIQUE_ID_PROPERTY_NAME]
if (id != null) {
return id
}
if (Object.isFrozen(object)) {
return null
}
var uniqueId = getNextObjectId()
Object.defineProperty(object, UNIQUE_ID_PROPERTY_NAME, {
enumerable: false,
configurable: false,
writable: false,
value: uniqueId,
})
return uniqueId
}