for..in and hasOwnProperty
Possible Duplicate:
How do I check to see if an object has a property in Javascript?
I found the following snippet in twitter's JS files. I was wondering why do they need to call hasOwnProperty function to see 'dict' has 'key' property? The for loop is running for each 'key' in 'dict' which means 'dict' has 'key', Am I missing a point?
function forEach(dict, f) {
for (key in dict) {
if (dict.hasOwnProperty(key))
f(key, dict[key]);
}
}
Because if you don't, it will loop through every property on the prototype chain, including ones that you don't know about (that were possibly added by somebody messing with native object prototypes).
This way you're guaranteed only the keys that are on that object instance itself.
The hasOwnProperty method lets you know if a property is directly on an instance of an object or inherited from it's prototype chain.
Consider the following
function ObjWithProto() {
this.foo = 'foo_val';
}
ObjWithProto.prototype = {bar: 'bar_val'};
var dict = new ObjWithProto();
dict.foobar = 'foobar_val';
ie you have an Object dict with properties foo and foobar that also inherits a property bar from it's prototype chain.
Now run it through (a modified version of) your code
function forEach(dict) {
var key;
for (key in dict) {
if ( dict.hasOwnProperty(key) ) console.log('has', key, dict[key]);
else console.log('not', key, dict[key]);
}
}
forEach( dict );
You will see
has foo foo_val
has foobar foobar_val
not bar bar_val
This lets you separate properties that an object has itself and those it has inherited (which are usually methods that aren't relevant to the loop)
Furthermore, if you now do dict.bar = 'new_bar_val'; , the last result will change to has bar new_bar_val , letting you distinguish even between properties of the same name as those inherited.
Every object on javascript is a dictionary, this means that "toString" and every other method is a key of every Object
var myObj = {};
console.log(myObj["toString"]);
But this function is inherited from Object class, so hasOwnProperty tells you if this key is owned by the dictionary or if it is inherited.
"toString" in myObj; // true
myObj.hasOwnProperty("toString") // false