I found myself in an interesting situation. I am using an object literal to represent a product in the real-world. Now each product has a length associated to it for shipping purposes. It looks something like this:
var product = {
name: 'MacBook Pro 15 Inch',
description: 'The new macbook pros....',
length: 15
height: 15
Weight: 4
}
This this works fine. But for products that have unknown length they default to length -1.
Again this works fine, until you try to do this:
console.log('Product has the following properties');
_.each(product, function(val, key) {
console.log(key + ":" + val);
});
No keys will be printed for a product that has a length of -1. Why? Well because internally underscore uses the length attribute, that every object in Javascript has to loop over all the attributes of the passed in object. Since we overwrote that value, it is now -1, and since we start looping at i = 0, the loop will never be executed.
Now for the question, how can I prevent the length property from being overridden? Best practices to prevent this from happening would also be appreciated.
try this:
var product = {
name: "MacBook Pro 15 Inch",
description: 'The new macbook pros....',
length: 15,
height: 15,
weight: 4
};
console.log('Product has the following properties');
_.each(_.keys(product), function(key){
console.log(key + ":" + product[key]);
});
This is perhaps due to some magic in _'s each function as I suspect it accepts both Objects and Arrays .. make your own?
Simple implementation (that avoids some common pitfalls):
function each(obj, map_func) {
var key;
for (key in obj) {
if (Object.prototype.hasOwnerProperty.call(obj, key)) {
map_func(key, obj[key]);
}
}
}
The magic in _'s each is probably due a nasty 'habit' in JavaScript of having things that 'look' like Arrays but aren't actually Arrays, like the magical variable arguments, and I think options in a select DOM Elements as well.
I can't think of anything off-hand that overrides it. I suppose using the length property is a form of duck typing that marks it by jQuery as iterable.
But.. you can just not use the jQuery each method, and do it the manual way..
By simply using
for (key in product) {
}
You get your basic loop. Now if you are potentially overriding the object's prototype, you should also check product.hashOwnProperty(key) to make sure the current key you're iterating is defined in the product instance.
Now if you also need a new closure scope, that's pretty simple too.. here's an alternative each function..
var myEach = function(subject, callback) {
for (key in subject) {
if (subject.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
callback(subject[key], key);
}
}
}
Note: untested.
If you can't change the name of the length property, you could add an additional check to underscore to prevent this case:
_.each = _.forEach = function(obj, iterator, context) {
if (obj == null) return;
if (Array.prototype.forEach && obj.forEach === Array.prototype.forEach) {
obj.forEach(iterator, context);
} else if (obj.length === +obj.length && obj.constructor != Object) {
for (var i = 0, l = obj.length; i < l; i++) {
if (i in obj && iterator.call(context, obj[i], i, obj) === breaker) return;
}
} else {
for (var key in obj) {
if (_.has(obj, key)) {
if (iterator.call(context, obj[key], key, obj) === breaker) return;
}
}
}
};
The addition here is the && obj.constructor != Object on line 5. It works, though monkeypatching underscore may not be the most desirable thing in the world.
EDIT: Actually, this breaks on pseudo-arrays like arguments, since its constructor is Object, but <an array-like object>.hasOwnProperty(<an integer>) is false. Woo JavaScript.
Related
var obj = {
name: "Simon",
age: "20",
clothing: {
style: "simple",
hipster: false
}
}
for(var propt in obj){
console.log(propt + ': ' + obj[propt]);
}
How does the variable propt represent the properties of the object? It's not a built-in method or property. Why does it come up with every property in the object?
Iterating over properties requires this additional hasOwnProperty check:
for (var prop in obj) {
if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(obj, prop)) {
// do stuff
}
}
It's necessary because an object's prototype contains additional properties for the object which are technically part of the object. These additional properties are inherited from the base object class, but are still properties of obj.
hasOwnProperty simply checks to see if this is a property specific to this class, and not one inherited from the base class.
It's also possible to call hasOwnProperty through the object itself:
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
// do stuff
}
But this will fail if the object has an unrelated field with the same name:
var obj = { foo: 42, hasOwnProperty: 'lol' };
obj.hasOwnProperty('foo'); // TypeError: hasOwnProperty is not a function
That's why it's safer to call it through Object.prototype instead:
var obj = { foo: 42, hasOwnProperty: 'lol' };
Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(obj, 'foo'); // true
As of JavaScript 1.8.5 you can use Object.keys(obj) to get an Array of properties defined on the object itself (the ones that return true for obj.hasOwnProperty(key)).
Object.keys(obj).forEach(function(key,index) {
// key: the name of the object key
// index: the ordinal position of the key within the object
});
This is better (and more readable) than using a for-in loop.
Its supported on these browsers:
Firefox (Gecko): 4 (2.0)
Chrome: 5
Internet Explorer: 9
See the Mozilla Developer Network Object.keys()'s reference for futher information.
Girls and guys we are in 2019 and we do not have that much time for typing... So lets do this cool new fancy ECMAScript 2016:
Object.keys(obj).forEach(e => console.log(`key=${e} value=${obj[e]}`));
In up-to-date implementations of ES, you can use Object.entries:
for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(obj)) { }
or
Object.entries(obj).forEach(([key, value]) => ...)
If you just want to iterate over the values, then use Object.values:
for (const value of Object.values(obj)) { }
or
Object.values(obj).forEach(value => ...)
It's the for...in statement (MDN, ECMAScript spec).
You can read it as "FOR every property IN the obj object, assign each property to the PROPT variable in turn".
It's just a for...in loop. Check out the documentation at Mozilla.
if (typeof obj === 'object' && obj !== null) {
Object.keys(obj).forEach(key => {
console.log("\n" + key + ": " + obj[key]);
});
}
// *** Explanation line by line ***
// Explaining the bellow line
// It checks if obj is neither null nor undefined, which means it's safe to get its keys.
// Otherwise it will give you a "TypeError: Cannot convert undefined or null to object" if obj is null or undefined.
// NOTE 1: You can use Object.hasOwnProperty() instead of Object.keys(obj).length
// NOTE 2: No need to check if obj is an array because it will work just fine.
// NOTE 3: No need to check if obj is a string because it will not pass the 'if typeof obj is Object' statement.
// NOTE 4: No need to check if Obj is undefined because it will not pass the 'if type obj is Object' statement either.
if (typeof obj === 'object' && obj !== null) {
// Explaining the bellow line
// Just like in the previous line, this returns an array with
// all keys in obj (because if code execution got here, it means
// obj has keys.)
// Then just invoke built-in javascript forEach() to loop
// over each key in returned array and calls a call back function
// on each array element (key), using ES6 arrow function (=>)
// Or you can just use a normal function ((key) { blah blah }).
Object.keys(obj).forEach(key => {
// The bellow line prints out all keys with their
// respective value in obj.
// key comes from the returned array in Object.keys(obj)
// obj[key] returns the value of key in obj
console.log("\n" + key + ": " + obj[key]);
});
}
If your environment supports ES2017 then I would recommend Object.entries:
Object.entries(obj).forEach(([key, value]) => {
console.log(`${key} ${value}`);
});
As shown in Mozillas Object.entries() documentation:
The Object.entries() method returns an array of a given object's own
enumerable property [key, value] pairs, in the same order as that
provided by a for...in loop (the difference being that a for-in loop
enumerates properties in the prototype chain as well).
Basically with Object.entries we can forgo the following extra step that is required with the older for...in loop:
// This step is not necessary with Object.entries
if (object.hasOwnProperty(property)) {
// do stuff
}
Dominik's answer is perfect, I just prefer to do it that way, as it's cleaner to read:
for (var property in obj) {
if (!obj.hasOwnProperty(property)) continue;
// Do stuff...
}
jquery allows you to do this now:
$.each( obj, function( key, value ) {
alert( key + ": " + value );
});
The for...in loop represents each property in an object because it is just like a for loop. You defined propt in the for...in loop by doing:
for(var propt in obj){
alert(propt + ': ' + obj[propt]);
}
A for...in loop iterates through the enumerable properties of an object. Whichever variable you define, or put in the for...in loop, changes each time it goes to the next property it iterates. The variable in the for...in loop iterates through the keys, but the value of it is the key's value. For example:
for(var propt in obj) {
console.log(propt);//logs name
console.log(obj[propt]);//logs "Simon"
}
You can see how the variable differs from the variable's value. In contrast, a for...of loop does the opposite.
I hope this helps.
To add ES2015's usage of Reflect.ownKeys(obj) and also iterating over the properties via an iterator.
For example:
let obj = { a: 'Carrot', b: 'Potato', Car: { doors: 4 } };
can be iterated over by
// logs each key
Reflect.ownKeys(obj).forEach(key => console.log(key));
If you would like to iterate directly over the values of the keys of an object, you can define an iterator, just like JavaScipts's default iterators for strings, arrays, typed arrays, Map and Set.
JS will attempt to iterate via the default iterator property, which must be defined as Symbol.iterator.
If you want to be able to iterate over all objects you can add it as a prototype of Object:
Object.prototype[Symbol.iterator] = function*() {
for(p of Reflect.ownKeys(this)){ yield this[p]; }
}
This would enable you to iterate over the values of an object with a for...of loop, for example:
for(val of obj) { console.log('Value is:' + val ) }
Caution: As of writing this answer (June 2018) all other browsers, but IE, support generators and for...of iteration via Symbol.iterator
The above answers are a bit annoying because they don't explain what you do inside the for loop after you ensure it's an object: YOU DON'T ACCESS IT DIRECTLY! You are actually only delivered the KEY that you need to apply to the OBJ:
var obj = {
a: "foo",
b: "bar",
c: "foobar"
};
// We need to iterate the string keys (not the objects)
for(var someKey in obj)
{
// We check if this key exists in the obj
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(someKey))
{
// someKey is only the KEY (string)! Use it to get the obj:
var myActualPropFromObj = obj[someKey]; // Since dynamic, use [] since the key isn't literally named "someKey"
// NOW you can treat it like an obj
var shouldBeBar = myActualPropFromObj.b;
}
}
This is all ECMA5 safe. Even works in the lame JS versions like Rhino ;)
let obj = {"a": 3, "b": 2, "6": "a"}
Object.keys(obj).forEach((item) => {console.log("item", obj[item])})
// a
// 3
// 2
You can access the nested properties of the object using the for...in and forEach loop.
for...in:
for (const key in info) {
console.log(info[key]);
}
forEach:
Object.keys(info).forEach(function(prop) {
console.log(info[prop]);
// cities: Array[3], continent: "North America", images: Array[3], name: "Canada"
// "prop" is the property name
// "data[prop]" is the property value
});
You can use Lodash. The documentation
var obj = {a: 1, b: 2, c: 3};
_.keys(obj).forEach(function (key) {
...
});
Object.keys(obj).forEach(key =>
console.log(`key=${key} value=${obj[key]}`)
);
Nowadays you can convert a standard JS object into an iterable object just by adding a Symbol.iterator method. Then you can use a for of loop and acceess its values directly or even can use a spread operator on the object too. Cool. Let's see how we can make it:
var o = {a:1,b:2,c:3},
a = [];
o[Symbol.iterator] = function*(){
var ok = Object.keys(this);
i = 0;
while (i < ok.length) yield this[ok[i++]];
};
for (var value of o) console.log(value);
// or you can even do like
a = [...o];
console.log(a);
Your for loop is iterating over all of the properties of the object obj. propt is defined in the first line of your for loop. It is a string that is a name of a property of the obj object. In the first iteration of the loop, propt would be "name".
Objects in JavaScript are collections of properties and can therefore be looped in a for each statement.
You should think of obj as an key value collection.
If running Node I'd recommend:
Object.keys(obj).forEach((key, index) => {
console.log(key);
});
While the top-rated answer is correct, here is an alternate use case i.e if you are iterating over an object and want to create an array in the end. Use .map instead of forEach
const newObj = Object.keys(obj).map(el => {
//ell will hold keys
// Getting the value of the keys should be as simple as obj[el]
})
I want to add to the answers above, because you might have different intentions from Javascript. A JSON object and a Javascript object are different things, and you might want to iterate through the properties of a JSON object using the solutions proposed above, and then be surprised.
Suppose that you have a JSON object like:
var example = {
"prop1": "value1",
"prop2": [ "value2_0", "value2_1"],
"prop3": {
"prop3_1": "value3_1"
}
}
The wrong way to iterate through its 'properties':
function recursivelyIterateProperties(jsonObject) {
for (var prop in Object.keys(example)) {
console.log(prop);
recursivelyIterateProperties(jsonObject[prop]);
}
}
You might be surprised of seeing the console logging 0, 1, etc. when iterating through the properties of prop1 and prop2 and of prop3_1. Those objects are sequences, and the indexes of a sequence are properties of that object in Javascript.
A better way to recursively iterate through a JSON object properties would be to first check if that object is a sequence or not:
function recursivelyIterateProperties(jsonObject) {
for (var prop in Object.keys(example)) {
console.log(prop);
if (!(typeof(jsonObject[prop]) === 'string')
&& !(jsonObject[prop] instanceof Array)) {
recursivelyIterateProperties(jsonObject[prop]);
}
}
}
What for..in loop does is that it creates a new variable (var someVariable) and then stores each property of the given object in this new variable(someVariable) one by one. Therefore if you use block {}, you can iterate. Consider the following example.
var obj = {
name:'raman',
hobby:'coding',
planet:'earth'
};
for(var someVariable in obj) {
//do nothing..
}
console.log(someVariable); // outputs planet
Here I am iterating each node and creating meaningful node names. If you notice, instanceOf Array and instanceOf Object pretty much does the same thing (in my application, i am giving different logic though)
function iterate(obj,parent_node) {
parent_node = parent_node || '';
for (var property in obj) {
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(property)) {
var node = parent_node + "/" + property;
if(obj[property] instanceof Array) {
//console.log('array: ' + node + ":" + obj[property]);
iterate(obj[property],node)
} else if(obj[property] instanceof Object){
//console.log('Object: ' + node + ":" + obj[property]);
iterate(obj[property],node)
}
else {
console.log(node + ":" + obj[property]);
}
}
}
}
note - I am inspired by Ondrej Svejdar's answer. But this solution has better performance and less ambiguous
Also adding the recursive way:
function iterate(obj) {
// watch for objects we've already iterated so we won't end in endless cycle
// for cases like var foo = {}; foo.bar = foo; iterate(foo);
var walked = [];
var stack = [{obj: obj, stack: ''}];
while(stack.length > 0)
{
var item = stack.pop();
var obj = item.obj;
for (var property in obj) {
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(property)) {
if (typeof obj[property] == "object") {
// check if we haven't iterated through the reference yet
var alreadyFound = false;
for(var i = 0; i < walked.length; i++)
{
if (walked[i] === obj[property])
{
alreadyFound = true;
break;
}
}
// new object reference
if (!alreadyFound)
{
walked.push(obj[property]);
stack.push({obj: obj[property], stack: item.stack + '.' + property});
}
}
else
{
console.log(item.stack + '.' + property + "=" + obj[property]);
}
}
}
}
}
Usage:
iterate({ foo: "foo", bar: { foo: "foo"} });
You basically want to loop through each property in the object.
JSFiddle
var Dictionary = {
If: {
you: {
can: '',
make: ''
},
sense: ''
},
of: {
the: {
sentence: {
it: '',
worked: ''
}
}
}
};
function Iterate(obj) {
for (prop in obj) {
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(prop) && isNaN(prop)) {
console.log(prop + ': ' + obj[prop]);
Iterate(obj[prop]);
}
}
}
Iterate(Dictionary);
To further refine the accepted answer it's worth noting that if you instantiate the object with a var object = Object.create(null) then object.hasOwnProperty(property) will trigger a TypeError. So to be on the safe side, you'd need to call it from the prototype like this:
for (var property in object) {
if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(object, property)) {
// do stuff
}
}
Check type
You can check how propt represent object propertis by
typeof propt
to discover that it's just a string (name of property). It come up with every property in the object due the way of how for-in js "build-in" loop works.
var obj = {
name: "Simon",
age: "20",
clothing: {
style: "simple",
hipster: false
}
}
for(var propt in obj){
console.log(typeof propt, propt + ': ' + obj[propt]);
}
If you just want to iterate to map property values then lodash has _.mapValues
const obj = {
a: 2,
b: 3
}
const res = _.mapValues(obj, v => v * 2)
console.log(res)
<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash#4.17.21/lodash.min.js"></script>
I am using angular-translate for a big application. Having several people committing code + translations, many times the translation objects are not in sync.
I am building a Grunt plugin to look at both files' structure and compare it (just the keys and overall structure, not values).
The main goals are:
Look into each file, and check if the structure of the whole object
(or file, in this case) is the exact same as the translated ones;
On error, return the key that doesn't match.
It turns out it was a bit more complicated than I anticipated. So i figured I could do something like:
Sort the object;
Check the type of data the value contains (since they are translations, it will only have strings, or objects for the nestings) and store it in another object, making the key equal to the original key and the value would be a string 'String', or an object in case it's an object. That object contains the children elements;
Recursively repeat steps 1-2 until the whole object is mapped and sorted;
Do the same for all the files
Stringify and compare everything.
A tiny example would be the following object:
{
key1: 'cool',
key2: 'cooler',
keyWhatever: {
anotherObject: {
key1: 'better',
keyX: 'awesome'
},
aObject: 'actually, it\'s a string'
},
aKey: 'more awesomeness'
}
would map to:
{
aKey: 'String',
key1: 'String',
key2: 'String',
keyWhatever: {
aObject: 'String',
anotherObject: {
key1: 'String',
keyX: 'String'
}
}
}
After this, I would stringify all the objects and proceed with a strict comparison.
My question is, is there a better way to perform this? Both in terms of simplicity and performance, since there are many translation files and they are fairly big.
I tried to look for libraries that would already do this, but I couldn't find any.
Thank you
EDIT: Thank you Jared for pointing out objects can't be sorted. I am ashamed for saying something like that :D Another solution could be iterating each of the properties on the main translation file, and in case they are strings, compare the key with the other files. In case they are objects, "enter" them, and do the same. Maybe it is even simpler than my first guess. What should be done?
Lets say you have two JSON objects, jsonA and jsonB.
function compareValues(a, b) {
//if a and b aren't the same type, they can't be equal
if (typeof a !== typeof b) {
return false;
}
// Need the truthy guard because
// typeof null === 'object'
if (a && typeof a === 'object') {
var keysA = Object.keys(a).sort(),
keysB = Object.keys(b).sort();
//if a and b are objects with different no of keys, unequal
if (keysA.length !== keysB.length) {
return false;
}
//if keys aren't all the same, unequal
if (!keysA.every(function(k, i) { return k === keysB[i];})) {
return false;
}
//recurse on the values for each key
return keysA.every(function(key) {
//if we made it here, they have identical keys
return compareValues(a[key], b[key]);
});
//for primitives just use a straight up check
} else {
return a === b;
}
}
//true if their structure, values, and keys are identical
var passed = compareValues(jsonA, jsonB);
Note that this can overflow the stack for deeply nested JSON objects. Note also that this will work for JSON but not necessarily regular JS objects as special handling is needed for Date Objects, Regexes, etc.
Actually you do need to sort the keys, as they are not required to be spit out in any particular order. Write a function,
function getComparableForObject(obj) {
var keys = Object.keys(obj);
keys.sort(a, b => a > b ? 1 : -1);
var comparable = keys.map(
key => key + ":" + getValueRepresentation(obj[key])
).join(",");
return "{" + comparable + "}";
}
Where getValueRepresentation is a function that either returns "String" or calls getComparableForObject. If you are worried about circular references, add a Symbol to the outer scope, repr, assign obj[repr] = comparable in the function above, and in getValueRepresentation check every object for a defined obj[repr] and return it instead of processing it recursively.
Sorting an array of the keys from the object works. However, sorting has an average time complexity of O(nâ‹…log(n)). We can do better. A fast general algorithm for ensuring two sets A and B are equivalent is as follows:
for item in B
if item in A
remove item from A
else
sets are not equivalent
sets are equivalent iff A is empty
To address #Katana31, we can detect circular references as we go by maintaining a set of visited objects and ensuring that all descendents of that object are not already in the list:
# poorly written pseudo-code
fn detectCycles(A, found = {})
if A in found
there is a cycle
else
found = clone(found)
add A to found
for child in A
detectCycles(child, found)
Here's a complete implementation (you can find a simplified version that assumes JSON/non-circular input here):
var hasOwn = Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty;
var indexOf = Array.prototype.indexOf;
function isObjectEmpty(obj) {
for (var key in obj) {
return false;
}
return true;
}
function copyKeys(obj) {
var newObj = {};
for (var key in obj) {
newObj[key] = undefined;
}
return newObj;
}
// compares the structure of arbitrary values
function compareObjectStructure(a, b) {
return function innerCompare(a, b, pathA, pathB) {
if (typeof a !== typeof b) {
return false;
}
if (typeof a === 'object') {
// both or neither, but not mismatched
if (Array.isArray(a) !== Array.isArray(b)) {
return false;
}
if (indexOf.call(pathA, a) !== -1 || indexOf.call(pathB, b) !== -1) {
return false;
}
pathA = pathA.slice();
pathA.push(a);
pathB = pathB.slice();
pathB.push(b);
if (Array.isArray(a)) {
// can't compare structure in array if we don't have items in both
if (!a.length || !b.length) {
return true;
}
for (var i = 1; i < a.length; i++) {
if (!innerCompare(a[0], a[i], pathA, pathA)) {
return false;
}
}
for (var i = 0; i < b.length; i++) {
if (!innerCompare(a[0], b[i], pathA, pathB)) {
return false;
}
}
return true;
}
var map = copyKeys(a), keys = Object.keys(b);
for (var i = 0; i < keys.length; i++) {
var key = keys[i];
if (!hasOwn.call(map, key) || !innerCompare(a[key], b[key], pathA,
pathB)) {
return false;
}
delete map[key];
}
// we should've found all the keys in the map
return isObjectEmpty(map);
}
return true;
}(a, b, [], []);
}
Note that this implementation directly compares two objects for structural equivalency, but doesn't reduce the objects to a directly comparable value (like a string). I haven't done any performance testing, but I suspect that it won't add significant value, though it will remove the need to repeatedly ensure objects are non-cyclic. For that reason, you could easily split compareObjectStructure into two functions - one to compare the structure and one to check for cycles.
This question already has answers here:
How do I loop through or enumerate a JavaScript object?
(48 answers)
Closed 6 years ago.
How do I enumerate the properties of a JavaScript object?
I actually want to list all the defined variables and their values, but I've learned that defining a variable actually creates a property of the window object.
Simple enough:
for(var propertyName in myObject) {
// propertyName is what you want
// you can get the value like this: myObject[propertyName]
}
Now, you will not get private variables this way because they are not available.
EDIT: #bitwiseplatypus is correct that unless you use the hasOwnProperty() method, you will get properties that are inherited - however, I don't know why anyone familiar with object-oriented programming would expect anything less! Typically, someone that brings this up has been subjected to Douglas Crockford's warnings about this, which still confuse me a bit. Again, inheritance is a normal part of OO languages and is therefore part of JavaScript, notwithstanding it being prototypical.
Now, that said, hasOwnProperty() is useful for filtering, but we don't need to sound a warning as if there is something dangerous in getting inherited properties.
EDIT 2: #bitwiseplatypus brings up the situation that would occur should someone add properties/methods to your objects at a point in time later than when you originally wrote your objects (via its prototype) - while it is true that this might cause unexpected behavior, I personally don't see that as my problem entirely. Just a matter of opinion. Besides, what if I design things in such a way that I use prototypes during the construction of my objects and yet have code that iterates over the properties of the object and I want all inherited properties? I wouldn't use hasOwnProperty(). Then, let's say, someone adds new properties later. Is that my fault if things behave badly at that point? I don't think so. I think this is why jQuery, as an example, has specified ways of extending how it works (via jQuery.extend and jQuery.fn.extend).
Use a for..in loop to enumerate an object's properties, but be careful. The enumeration will return properties not just of the object being enumerated, but also from the prototypes of any parent objects.
var myObject = {foo: 'bar'};
for (var name in myObject) {
alert(name);
}
// results in a single alert of 'foo'
Object.prototype.baz = 'quux';
for (var name in myObject) {
alert(name);
}
// results in two alerts, one for 'foo' and one for 'baz'
To avoid including inherited properties in your enumeration, check hasOwnProperty():
for (var name in myObject) {
if (myObject.hasOwnProperty(name)) {
alert(name);
}
}
Edit: I disagree with JasonBunting's statement that we don't need to worry about enumerating inherited properties. There is danger in enumerating over inherited properties that you aren't expecting, because it can change the behavior of your code.
It doesn't matter whether this problem exists in other languages; the fact is it exists, and JavaScript is particularly vulnerable since modifications to an object's prototype affects child objects even if the modification takes place after instantiation.
This is why JavaScript provides hasOwnProperty(), and this is why you should use it in order to ensure that third party code (or any other code that might modify a prototype) doesn't break yours. Apart from adding a few extra bytes of code, there is no downside to using hasOwnProperty().
The standard way, which has already been proposed several times is:
for (var name in myObject) {
alert(name);
}
However Internet Explorer 6, 7 and 8 have a bug in the JavaScript interpreter, which has the effect that some keys are not enumerated. If you run this code:
var obj = { toString: 12};
for (var name in obj) {
alert(name);
}
If will alert "12" in all browsers except IE. IE will simply ignore this key. The affected key values are:
isPrototypeOf
hasOwnProperty
toLocaleString
toString
valueOf
To be really safe in IE you have to use something like:
for (var key in myObject) {
alert(key);
}
var shadowedKeys = [
"isPrototypeOf",
"hasOwnProperty",
"toLocaleString",
"toString",
"valueOf"
];
for (var i=0, a=shadowedKeys, l=a.length; i<l; i++) {
if map.hasOwnProperty(a[i])) {
alert(a[i]);
}
}
The good news is that EcmaScript 5 defines the Object.keys(myObject) function, which returns the keys of an object as array and some browsers (e.g. Safari 4) already implement it.
In modern browsers (ECMAScript 5) to get all enumerable properties you can do:
Object.keys(obj)
(Check the link to get a snippet for backward compatibility on older browsers)
Or to get also non-enumerable properties:
Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj)
Check ECMAScript 5 compatibility table
Additional info:
What is a enumerable attribute?
I think an example of the case that has caught me by surprise is relevant:
var myObject = { name: "Cody", status: "Surprised" };
for (var propertyName in myObject) {
document.writeln( propertyName + " : " + myObject[propertyName] );
}
But to my surprise, the output is
name : Cody
status : Surprised
forEach : function (obj, callback) {
for (prop in obj) {
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(prop) && typeof obj[prop] !== "function") {
callback(prop);
}
}
}
Why? Another script on the page has extended the Object prototype:
Object.prototype.forEach = function (obj, callback) {
for ( prop in obj ) {
if ( obj.hasOwnProperty( prop ) && typeof obj[prop] !== "function" ) {
callback( prop );
}
}
};
for (prop in obj) {
alert(prop + ' = ' + obj[prop]);
}
Simple JavaScript code:
for(var propertyName in myObject) {
// propertyName is what you want.
// You can get the value like this: myObject[propertyName]
}
jQuery:
jQuery.each(obj, function(key, value) {
// key is what you want.
// The value is in: value
});
Here's how to enumerate an object's properties:
var params = { name: 'myname', age: 'myage' }
for (var key in params) {
alert(key + "=" + params[key]);
}
I found it... for (property in object) { // do stuff } will list all the properties, and therefore all the globally declared variables on the window object..
You can use the for of loop.
If you want an array use:
Object.keys(object1)
Ref. Object.keys()
If you are using the Underscore.js library, you can use function keys:
_.keys({one : 1, two : 2, three : 3});
=> ["one", "two", "three"]
Python's dict has 'keys' method, and that is really useful. I think in JavaScript we can have something this:
function keys(){
var k = [];
for(var p in this) {
if(this.hasOwnProperty(p))
k.push(p);
}
return k;
}
Object.defineProperty(Object.prototype, "keys", { value : keys, enumerable:false });
EDIT: But the answer of #carlos-ruana works very well. I tested Object.keys(window), and the result is what I expected.
EDIT after 5 years: it is not good idea to extend Object, because it can conflict with other libraries that may want to use keys on their objects and it will lead unpredictable behavior on your project. #carlos-ruana answer is the correct way to get keys of an object.
If you're trying to enumerate the properties in order to write new code against the object, I would recommend using a debugger like Firebug to see them visually.
Another handy technique is to use Prototype's Object.toJSON() to serialize the object to JSON, which will show you both property names and values.
var data = {name: 'Violet', occupation: 'character', age: 25, pets: ['frog', 'rabbit']};
Object.toJSON(data);
//-> '{"name": "Violet", "occupation": "character", "age": 25, "pets": ["frog","rabbit"]}'
http://www.prototypejs.org/api/object/tojson
I'm still a beginner in JavaScript, but I wrote a small function to recursively print all the properties of an object and its children:
getDescription(object, tabs) {
var str = "{\n";
for (var x in object) {
str += Array(tabs + 2).join("\t") + x + ": ";
if (typeof object[x] === 'object' && object[x]) {
str += this.getDescription(object[x], tabs + 1);
} else {
str += object[x];
}
str += "\n";
}
str += Array(tabs + 1).join("\t") + "}";
return str;
}
There seems to have many question asked similar on counting number of element already but I am failing to implement them with mine problem.
After jquery ajax I get JSON data returned which looks something like this
Object {0: Object, 1: Object , xxxx:"asdf" ,yyyy:"asdf", zzzz:"asdf"}
I want to get number of object between this { } braces ( not counting those xxx,yyy element )
I tried .length which doesn't work
I also tried using this Length of a JavaScript object but that return the number of element in each object. I just want the number of object
Thank You
Try this:
var json = { 0: {}, 1: {}, xxxx: "asdf", yyyy: "asdf", zzzz: "asdf" };
function typeOf( obj ) {
return ({}).toString.call( obj )
.match(/\s([a-zA-Z]+)/)[1].toLowerCase();
}
var total = 0;
for ( var o in json ) {
if ( typeOf( json[o] ) == 'object' ) {
total++;
}
}
console.log( total ); //=> 2
Everything is an object in JavaScript. The typeof operator is misleading and won't work in this case. You can use the typeOf function above that I extracted from this blog post: Fixing the JavaScript typeof operator (worth reading). There are other ways of doing it but this seems like the most straightforward.
If it's not just a coincidence that the objects are the ones with numeric property names, and the numeric properties count up sequentially, you could do something like this:
var obj = { /* your object here */ }
for (var i=0; i in obj; i++) {
// use obj[i] for something
}
// i is now equal to the number of numeric properties
This works because as soon as i is high enough that you've run out of properties the in operator will return false. Feel free to use .hasOwnProperty() instead if you prefer.
Obviously this is a specialised solution that doesn't test the type of the different properties at all. (To actually test the type see elclanrs' solution - and either way read the page he linked to.)
Say that the entire json is in a variable called json:
var total_objects = 0;
$.each(json, function () {
if (typeof this == 'object') {
total_objects++;
}
});
However, I am curious as to why you would need to know this.
You can use a customized version from the code of this question Length of Javascript Object (ie. Associative Array) and check for element's type using typeof operator and count only those which are an object (or an array).
Object.sizeObj = function(obj) {
var size = 0, key;
for (key in obj) {
if (typeof key[obj] === 'object' && obj.hasOwnProperty(key)) size++;
}
return size;
};
// Get the count of those elements which are an object
var objectsCount = Object.sizeObj(myArray);
Question about the implementation of the "each" function I found in the underscore.js source code (source below).
First, could someone explain what the line "else if (obj.length === +obj.length) " is checking for.
Second, could someone explain why hasOwnProperty.call(obj, key) is used, as opposed to obj.hasOwnProperty? Is it because the passed in obj may not implement hasOwnProperty (which I thought every javascript object did)
any insights appreciated. Thanks.
// The cornerstone, an `each` implementation, aka `forEach`.
// Handles objects with the built-in `forEach`, arrays, and raw objects.
// Delegates to **ECMAScript 5**'s native `forEach` if available.
var each = _.each = _.forEach = function(obj, iterator, context) {
if (obj == null) return;
if (nativeForEach && obj.forEach === nativeForEach) {
obj.forEach(iterator, context);
} else if (obj.length === +obj.length) {
for (var i = 0, l = obj.length; i < l; i++) {
if (i in obj && iterator.call(context, obj[i], i, obj) === breaker) return;
}
} else {
for (var key in obj) {
if (hasOwnProperty.call(obj, key)) {
if (iterator.call(context, obj[key], key, obj) === breaker) return;
}
}
}
};
This:
+obj.length
...will do a toNumber conversion on the value of length.
It appears as though they're making sure that length references a number by doing the toNumber conversion, and verifying that it's still the same number after the conversion.
If so, they assume that it is an Array, or at least an Array-like object for iteration.
If not, they assume that enumeration of all key value pairs is desired.
var obj = {
length:null,
someprop:'some value'
};
obj.length === +obj.length; // false, so do the enumeration
var obj = {
length: 2,
"0":'some value',
"1":'some other value'
};
obj.length === +obj.length; // true, not an actual Array,
// but iteration is still probably wanted
Of course you could have an object with a length property that is a primitive number, but still intend to enumerate the properties.
var obj = {
length: 2,
"prop1":'some value',
"prop2":'some other value'
};
obj.length === +obj.length; // true, it will iterate, but it would
// seem that enumeration is intended