Develop Reference

Javascript: Check if something can have properties _added_ to it

EDIT: Made clearer that the need is to determine if I can add properties to a value, not if a value can have its own properties.
Is there a way to check if is possible to add properties to a value?
For example, if I have this code:
function test( value ) {
// return true if it is possible to add properties to value
}
Other than actually adding a property value to test, is there a reliable way to deduce if value is something that properties can be added to?
For example, I know an object can have properties and undefined can't, but I'm not keen on creating a list of known things that might not suffice in the future. Is something like instanceof object sufficient?

The list of values that do not have properties is quite short: undefined and null. Testing for those should be straightforward (value == null).
Note that all other primitives can have properties (through boxing), but as the boxed object gets lost immeadiately there is no sense in adding properties to them:
1..test = 1;
"test".test = 1;
Infinity.test = 1;
NaN.test = 1;
true.test = 1;
Symbol().test = 1;
1n.test = 1;
To check for non-primitives, typeof value === "object" can be used, but as null is also an object (a very special one, actually it counts as a primitive but typeof lies about that), you have to explicitly check for value !== null.
While you can usually add properties to objects, they can be frozen, then adding properties is useless, the same applies to Proxies.
const obj = {};
Object.freeze(obj);
obj.test = 1;
console.log(obj.test);
And as Proxies can't be detected, there is no way to find out wether a property can be added or not.

A simple idea (although it does not solve completely the case as per Jonas Wilms answer) may be:
function test(value) {
try {
if (value.p === undefined) {
value.p = 10;
if (value.p === undefined) {
return false;
}
delete value.p;
}
} catch(e) {
return false;
}
return true;
}
console.log('null: ' + test(null));
console.log('undefined: ' + test(undefined));
console.log('number: ' + test(10));
console.log('object: ' + test({a:10}));
var obj = { get p() { return false; }, set p(v) {} };
console.log('object with property name confict: ' + test(obj));

As pointed out by Jonas Wilms:
Bad usecase. You are just writing your next headache :)
I need to refactor my code so it doesn't need to jump through hoops.

Check if key is in the object

var stored_names = {
332438809: "Bereznyak24",
489485245: "Bereznyak25"
}
if ((data.message.from.id in stored_names) && (data.message.text === "/start")) {
SendMsg(id, first_reply.text);
}
How can I check if my object has key (or has not) that's equal to data.message.from.id value that I get later?

Your answer should work, as your are using the in keyword (value in stored_names).
Another way to check if the value is amongst the keys is to use Object.key() to enumerate the keys and Array.includes.
Object.keys(arr).includes(value);
See the doc for Object.keys

Dynamically adding properties to an object

I have an object named Object1 which is third party object & I'm putting in properties inside it.
Object1.shoot({
'prop1':prop_1,
'prop2':prop_2,
'prop3':prop_3
});
Now I want the key 'prop1' to be added as property to Object1 only when prop_1 has some value. Otherwise I do not want to add it,
Whats the best way to do it?

You can check each property in for loop first.
var params = {
'prop1':prop_1,
'prop2':prop_2,
'prop3':prop_3
};
for (var param in params) {
if (typeof params[param] === 'undefined') {
delete params[param];
}
}
Object1.shoot(params);

You can make a helper function to add the property if defined:
function addProp(target, name, value) {
if(value != null) {
target[name] = value
}
}
var props = {}
addProp(props, 'prop1', prop_1)
addProp(props, 'prop2', prop_2)
addProp(props, 'prop3', prop_3)
The above does a null check instead of an undefined check. You can change as appropriate (e.g. you might not want empty strings, or number zero or anything else), though check this first:
How to determine if variable is 'undefined' or 'null'?

JavaScript: Get first and only property name of object

If I want to enumerate the properties of an object and want to ignore prototypes, I would use:
var instance = { ... };
for (var prop in instance) {
if (instance.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
...
}
}
What if instance only has one property, and I want to get that property name? Is there an easier way than doing this:
var instance = { id: "foobar" };
var singleMember = (function() {
for (var prop in instance) {
if (instance.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
return prop;
}
}
})();

Maybe Object.keys can work for you. If its length returns 1, you can use yourObject[Object.keys[0]] to get the only property of the object. The MDN-link also shows a custom function for use in environments without the keys method1. Code like this:
var obj = {foo:'bar'},
kyz = Object.keys(obj);
if (kyz.length === 1){
alert(obj[kyz[0]]); //=> 'bar'
} else {
/* loop through obj */
}
1 Some older browsers don't support Object.keys. The MDN link supplies code to to make it work in these browsers too. See header Compatibility in the aforementioned MDN page

Shortest form:
instance[Object.keys(instance)[0]];
ES6+ function:
let first = v => v[Object.keys(v)[0]];
Use the function:
first({a:'first', b:'second'}) // return 'first'

var foo = {bar: 1};
console.log(Object.keys(foo).toString());
which will print the string
"bar"

Though my answer is downvoted, it's still worth to know that there is no such thing as order of keys in javascript object. Therefore, in theory, any code build on iterating values can be inconsistent. One approach could be creating an object and to define setter which actually provides counting, ordering and so on, and provide some methods to access this fields. This could be done in modern browsers.
So, to answer you question, in general you approach is still most closs-browser. You can iterate using lodash or any other modern framework wich will hide "hasOwnProperty" complexity from you. As of August'15 Object.keys can be accepted as cross-browser and universal. After all IE8 happened years ago. Still there are some cases when you just don't wont store all set of keys in array. But I'd go with Object.keys - it's more flexible compared to iteration.

Unfortunately, there is no, "list properties" function built in, and there certainly isn't a "getFirstProperty" (especially since there is no guarantee that any property will consistently be "first").
I think you're better off writing a function like this one:
/**
* A means to get all of the keys of a JSON-style object.
* #param obj The object to iterate
* #param count maximum length of returned list (defaults to Infinity).
*/
function getProperties( obj, count )
{
if( isNaN( count ) ) count = Infinity
var keys = []
for( var it in obj )
{
if( keys.length > count ) break;
keys.push( it );
}
return keys;
}
Then, you could access the name though:
instance = {"foo":"bar"}
// String() on an array of < 2 length returns the first value as a string
// or "" if there are no values.
var prop = String(getProperties(instance, 1));

This is an old post, but I ended up writing the following helper function based on Object.keys().
It returns the key and value of the first property.
getFirstPropertyKeyAndValue(sourceObject) {
var result = null;
var ownProperties = Object.keys(sourceObject);
if (ownProperties.length > 0) {
if (ownProperties.length > 1) {
console.warn('Getting first property of an object containing more than 1 own property may result in unexpected results. Ordering is not ensured.', sourceObject);
}
var firstPropertyName = ownProperties[0];
result = {key: firstPropertyName, value: sourceObject[firstPropertyName]};
}
return result;
}

Answers in here all good, and with the caveat that the order may be unreliable (although in practice it seems the order the properties are set tends to stay that way), this quick and dirty method also works:
var obj = {foo: 1, bar: 2};
for(var key in obj) {
//you could use key here if you like
break;
}
//key now contains your first key
or a shorter version should also do it:
for(var key in obj) break;
//key now contains your first key

Check if an array item is set in JS

I've got an array
var assoc_pagine = new Array();
assoc_pagine["home"]=0;
assoc_pagine["about"]=1;
assoc_pagine["work"]=2;
I tried
if (assoc_pagine[var] != "undefined") {
but it doesn't seem to work
I'm using jquery, I don't know if it can help
Thanks

Use the in keyword to test if a attribute is defined in a object
if (assoc_var in assoc_pagine)
OR
if ("home" in assoc_pagine)
There are quite a few issues here.
Firstly, is var supposed to a variable has the value "home", "work" or "about"? Or did you mean to inspect actual property called "var"?
If var is supposed to be a variable that has a string value, please note that var is a reserved word in JavaScript and you will need to use another name, such as assoc_var.
var assoc_var = "home";
assoc_pagine[assoc_var] // equals 0 in your example
If you meant to inspect the property called "var", then you simple need to put it inside of quotes.
assoc_pagine["var"]
Then, undefined is not the same as "undefined". You will need typeof to get the string representation of the objects type.
This is a breakdown of all the steps.
var assoc_var = "home";
var value = assoc_pagine[assoc_var]; // 0
var typeofValue = typeof value; // "number"
So to fix your problem
if (typeof assoc_pagine[assoc_var] != "undefined")
update: As other answers have indicated, using a array is not the best sollution for this problem. Consider using a Object instead.
var assoc_pagine = new Object();
assoc_pagine["home"]=0;
assoc_pagine["about"]=1;
assoc_pagine["work"]=2;

var assoc_pagine = new Array();
assoc_pagine["home"]=0;
Don't use an Array for this. Arrays are for numerically-indexed lists. Just use a plain Object ({}).
What you are thinking of with the 'undefined' string is probably this:
if (typeof assoc_pagine[key]!=='undefined')
This is (more or less) the same as saying
if (assoc_pagine[key]!==undefined)
However, either way this is a bit ugly. You're dereferencing a key that may not exist (which would be an error in any more sensible language), and relying on JavaScript's weird hack of giving you the special undefined value for non-existent properties.
This also doesn't quite tell you if the property really wasn't there, or if it was there but explicitly set to the undefined value.
This is a more explicit, readable and IMO all-round better approach:
if (key in assoc_pagine)

var is a statement... so it's a reserved word... So just call it another way.
And that's a better way of doing it (=== is better than ==)
if(typeof array[name] !== 'undefined') {
alert("Has var");
} else {
alert("Doesn't have var");
}

This is not an Array.
Better declare it like this:
var assoc_pagine = {};
assoc_pagine["home"]=0;
assoc_pagine["about"]=1;
assoc_pagine["work"]=2;
or
var assoc_pagine = {
home:0,
about:1,
work:2
};
To check if an object contains some label you simply do something like this:
if('work' in assoc_pagine){
// do your thing
};

This worked for me
if (assoc_pagine[var] != undefined) {
instead this
if (assoc_pagine[var] != "undefined") {

TLDR; The best I can come up with is this: (Depending on your use case, there are a number of ways to optimize this function.)
function arrayIndexExists(array, index){
if ( typeof index !== 'number' && index === parseInt(index).toString()) {
index = parseInt(index);
} else {
return false;//to avoid checking typeof again
}
return typeof index === 'number' && index % 1===0 && index >= 0 && array.hasOwnKey(index);
}
The other answer's examples get close and will work for some (probably most) purposes, but are technically quite incorrect for reasons I explain below.
Javascript arrays only use 'numerical' keys. When you set an "associative key" on an array, you are actually setting a property on that array object, not an element of that array. For example, this means that the "associative key" will not be iterated over when using Array.forEach() and will not be included when calculating Array.length. (The exception for this is strings like '0' will resolve to an element of the array, but strings like ' 0' won't.)
Additionally, checking array element or object property that doesn't exist does evaluate as undefined, but that doesn't actually tell you that the array element or object property hasn't been set yet. For example, undefined is also the result you get by calling a function that doesn't terminate with a return statement. This could lead to some strange errors and difficulty debugging code.
This can be confusing, but can be explored very easily using your browser's javascript console. (I used chrome, each comment indicates the evaluated value of the line before it.);
var foo = new Array();
foo;
//[]
foo.length;
//0
foo['bar'] = 'bar';
//"bar"
foo;
//[]
foo.length;
//0
foo.bar;
//"bar"
This shows that associative keys are not used to access elements in the array, but for properties of the object.
foo[0] = 0;
//0
foo;
//[0]
foo.length;
//1
foo[2] = undefined
//undefined
typeof foo[2]
//"undefined"
foo.length
//3
This shows that checking typeof doesn't allow you to see if an element has been set.
var foo = new Array();
//undefined
foo;
//[]
foo[0] = 0;
//0
foo['0']
//0
foo[' 0']
//undefined
This shows the exception I mentioned above and why you can't just use parseInt();
If you want to use associative arrays, you are better off using simple objects as other answers have recommended.

if (assoc_pagine.indexOf('home') > -1) {
// we have home element in the assoc_pagine array
}
Mozilla indexOf

function isset(key){
ret = false;
array_example.forEach(function(entry) {
if( entry == key ){
ret = true;
}
});
return ret;
}
alert( isset("key_search") );

The most effective way:
if (array.indexOf(element) > -1) {
alert('Bingooo')
}
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