JavaScript: The Good Parts

Reflection

It is easy to inspect an object to determine what properties it has by attempting to retrieve the properties and examining the values obtained. The typeof operator can be very helpful in determining the type of a property:

typeof flight.number      // 'number'
typeof flight.status      // 'string'
typeof flight.arrival     // 'object'
typeof flight.manifest    // 'undefined'

Some care must be taken because any property on the prototype chain can produce a value:

typeof flight.toString    // 'function'
typeof flight.constructor // 'function'

There are two approaches to dealing with these undesired properties. The first is to have your program look for and reject function values. Generally, when you are reflecting, you are interested in data, and so you should be aware that some values could be functions.

The other approach is to use the hasOwnProperty method, which returns true if the object has a particular property. The hasOwnProperty method does not look at the prototype chain:

flight.hasOwnProperty('number')         // true
flight.hasOwnProperty('constructor')    // false