Check if a property is in a Object

When you have to check if a property is present in an object, you probably are doing something like this:

var myObject = {
  name: '@tips_js'
};

if (myObject.name) { ... }

That’s ok, but you have to know that there are two native ways for this kind of thing, the in operator and Object.hasOwnProperty. Every object descended from Object, has both ways available.

See the big Difference

var myObject = {
  name: '@tips_js'
};

myObject.hasOwnProperty('name'); // true
'name' in myObject; // true

myObject.hasOwnProperty('valueOf'); // false, valueOf is inherited from the prototype chain
'valueOf' in myObject; // true

Both differ in the depth at which they check the properties. In other words, hasOwnProperty will only return true if key is available on that object directly. However, the in operator doesn’t discriminate between properties created on an object and properties inherited from the prototype chain.

Here’s another example:

var myFunc = function() {
  this.name = '@tips_js';
};
myFunc.prototype.age = '10 days';

var user = new myFunc();

user.hasOwnProperty('name'); // true
user.hasOwnProperty('age'); // false, because age is from the prototype chain