I'm trying to access a property of an object using a dynamic name. Is this possible?
const something = { bar: "Foobar!" };
const foo = 'bar';
something.foo; // The idea is to access something.bar, getting "Foobar!"
There are two ways to access properties of an object:
Dot notation: something.bar
Bracket notation: something['bar']
The value between the brackets can be any expression. Therefore, if the property name is stored in a variable, you have to use bracket notation:
var something = {
bar: 'foo'
};
var foo = 'bar';
// both x = something[foo] and something[foo] = x work as expected
console.log(something[foo]);
console.log(something.bar)
This is my solution:
function resolve(path, obj) {
return path.split('.').reduce(function(prev, curr) {
return prev ? prev[curr] : null
}, obj || self)
}
Usage examples:
resolve("document.body.style.width")
// or
resolve("style.width", document.body)
// or even use array indexes
// (someObject has been defined in the question)
resolve("part.0.size", someObject)
// returns null when intermediate properties are not defined:
resolve('properties.that.do.not.exist', {hello:'world'})
In javascript we can access with:
dot notation - foo.bar
square brackets - foo[someVar] or foo["string"]
But only second case allows to access properties dynamically:
var foo = { pName1 : 1, pName2 : [1, {foo : bar }, 3] , ...}
var name = "pName"
var num = 1;
foo[name + num]; // 1
// --
var a = 2;
var b = 1;
var c = "foo";
foo[name + a][b][c]; // bar
Following is an ES6 example of how you can access the property of an object using a property name that has been dynamically generated by concatenating two strings.
var suffix = " name";
var person = {
["first" + suffix]: "Nicholas",
["last" + suffix]: "Zakas"
};
console.log(person["first name"]); // "Nicholas"
console.log(person["last name"]); // "Zakas"
This is called computed property names
You can achieve this in quite a few different ways.
let foo = {
bar: 'Hello World'
};
foo.bar;
foo['bar'];
The bracket notation is specially powerful as it let's you access a property based on a variable:
let foo = {
bar: 'Hello World'
};
let prop = 'bar';
foo[prop];
This can be extended to looping over every property of an object. This can be seem redundant due to newer JavaScript constructs such as for ... of ..., but helps illustrate a use case:
let foo = {
bar: 'Hello World',
baz: 'How are you doing?',
last: 'Quite alright'
};
for (let prop in foo.getOwnPropertyNames()) {
console.log(foo[prop]);
}
Both dot and bracket notation also work as expected for nested objects:
let foo = {
bar: {
baz: 'Hello World'
}
};
foo.bar.baz;
foo['bar']['baz'];
foo.bar['baz'];
foo['bar'].baz;
Object destructuring
We could also consider object destructuring as a means to access a property in an object, but as follows:
let foo = {
bar: 'Hello World',
baz: 'How are you doing?',
last: 'Quite alright'
};
let prop = 'last';
let { bar, baz, [prop]: customName } = foo;
// bar = 'Hello World'
// baz = 'How are you doing?'
// customName = 'Quite alright'
You can do it like this using Lodash get
_.get(object, 'a[0].b.c');
UPDATED
Accessing root properties in an object is easily achieved with obj[variable], but getting nested complicates things. Not to write already written code I suggest to use lodash.get.
Example
// Accessing root property
var rootProp = 'rootPropert';
_.get(object, rootProp, defaultValue);
// Accessing nested property
var listOfNestedProperties = [var1, var2];
_.get(object, listOfNestedProperties);
Lodash get can be used in different ways, the documentation lodash.get
To access a property dynamically, simply use square brackets [] as follows:
const something = { bar: "Foobar!" };
const userInput = 'bar';
console.log(something[userInput])
The problem
There's a major gotchya in that solution! (I'm surprised other answers have not brought this up yet). Often you only want to access properties that you've put onto that object yourself, you don't want to grab inherited properties.
Here's an illustration of this issue. Here we have an innocent-looking program, but it has a subtle bug - can you spot it?
const agesOfUsers = { sam: 16, sally: 22 }
const username = prompt('Enter a username:')
if (agesOfUsers[username] !== undefined) {
console.log(`${username} is ${agesOfUsers[username]} years old`)
} else {
console.log(`${username} is not found`)
}
When prompted for a username, if you supply "toString" as a username, it'll give you the following message: "toString is function toString() { [native code] } years old". The issue is that agesOfUsers is an object, and as such, automatically inherits certain properties like .toString() from the base Object class. You can look here for a full list of properties that all objects inherit.
Solutions
Use a Map data structure instead. The stored contents of a map don't suffer from prototype issues, so they provide a clean solution to this problem.
const agesOfUsers = new Map()
agesOfUsers.set('sam', 16)
agesOfUsers.set('sally', 2)
console.log(agesOfUsers.get('sam')) // 16
Use an object with a null prototype, instead of the default prototype. You can use Object.create(null) to create such an object. This sort of object does not suffer from these prototype issues, because you've explicitly created it in a way that it does not inherit anything.
const agesOfUsers = Object.create(null)
agesOfUsers.sam = 16
agesOfUsers.sally = 22;
console.log(agesOfUsers['sam']) // 16
console.log(agesOfUsers['toString']) // undefined - toString was not inherited
You can use Object.hasOwn(yourObj, attrName) to first check if the dynamic key you wish to access is directly on the object and not inherited (learn more here). This is a relatively newer feature, so check the compatibility tables before dropping it into your code. Before Object.hasOwn(yourObj, attrName) came around, you would achieve this same effect via Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(yourObj, attrName). Sometimes, you might see code using yourObj.hasOwnProperty(attrName) too, which sometimes works but it has some pitfalls that you can read about here.
// Try entering the property name "toString",
// you'll see it gets handled correctly.
const user = { name: 'sam', age: 16 }
const propName = prompt('Enter a property name:')
if (Object.hasOwn(user, propName)) {
console.log(`${propName} = ${user[propName]}`)
} else {
console.log(`${propName} is not found`)
}
If you know the key you're trying to use will never be the name of an inherited property (e.g. maybe they're numbers, or they all have the same prefix, etc), you can choose to use the original solution.
I came across a case where I thought I wanted to pass the "address" of an object property as data to another function and populate the object (with AJAX), do lookup from address array, and display in that other function. I couldn't use dot notation without doing string acrobatics so I thought an array might be nice to pass instead. I ended-up doing something different anyway, but seemed related to this post.
Here's a sample of a language file object like the one I wanted data from:
const locs = {
"audioPlayer": {
"controls": {
"start": "start",
"stop": "stop"
},
"heading": "Use controls to start and stop audio."
}
}
I wanted to be able to pass an array such as: ["audioPlayer", "controls", "stop"] to access the language text, "stop" in this case.
I created this little function that looks-up the "least specific" (first) address parameter, and reassigns the returned object to itself. Then it is ready to look-up the next-most-specific address parameter if one exists.
function getText(selectionArray, obj) {
selectionArray.forEach(key => {
obj = obj[key];
});
return obj;
}
usage:
/* returns 'stop' */
console.log(getText(["audioPlayer", "controls", "stop"], locs));
/* returns 'use controls to start and stop audio.' */
console.log(getText(["audioPlayer", "heading"], locs));
ES5 // Check Deeply Nested Variables
This simple piece of code can check for deeply nested variable / value existence without having to check each variable along the way...
var getValue = function( s, context ){
return Function.call( context || null, 'return ' + s )();
}
Ex. - a deeply nested array of objects:
a = [
{
b : [
{
a : 1,
b : [
{
c : 1,
d : 2 // we want to check for this
}
]
}
]
}
]
Instead of :
if(a && a[0] && a[0].b && a[0].b[0] && a[0].b[0].b && a[0].b[0].b[0] && a[0].b[0].b[0].d && a[0].b[0].b[0].d == 2 ) // true
We can now :
if( getValue('a[0].b[0].b[0].d') == 2 ) // true
Cheers!
Others have already mentioned 'dot' and 'square' syntaxes so I want to cover accessing functions and sending parameters in a similar fashion.
Code jsfiddle
var obj = {method:function(p1,p2,p3){console.log("method:",arguments)}}
var str = "method('p1', 'p2', 'p3');"
var match = str.match(/^\s*(\S+)\((.*)\);\s*$/);
var func = match[1]
var parameters = match[2].split(',');
for(var i = 0; i < parameters.length; ++i) {
// clean up param begninning
parameters[i] = parameters[i].replace(/^\s*['"]?/,'');
// clean up param end
parameters[i] = parameters[i].replace(/['"]?\s*$/,'');
}
obj[func](parameters); // sends parameters as array
obj[func].apply(this, parameters); // sends parameters as individual values
I asked a question that kinda duplicated on this topic a while back, and after excessive research, and seeing a lot of information missing that should be here, I feel I have something valuable to add to this older post.
Firstly I want to address that there are several ways to obtain the value of a property and store it in a dynamic Variable. The first most popular, and easiest way IMHO would be:
let properyValue = element.style['enter-a-property'];
however I rarely go this route because it doesn't work on property values assigned via style-sheets. To give you an example, I'll demonstrate with a bit of pseudo code.
let elem = document.getElementById('someDiv');
let cssProp = elem.style['width'];
Using the code example above; if the width property of the div element that was stored in the 'elem' variable was styled in a CSS style-sheet, and not styled inside of its HTML tag, you are without a doubt going to get a return value of undefined stored inside of the cssProp variable. The undefined value occurs because in-order to get the correct value, the code written inside a CSS Style-Sheet needs to be computed in-order to get the value, therefore; you must use a method that will compute the value of the property who's value lies within the style-sheet.
Henceforth the getComputedStyle() method!
function getCssProp(){
let ele = document.getElementById("test");
let cssProp = window.getComputedStyle(ele,null).getPropertyValue("width");
}
W3Schools getComputedValue Doc This gives a good example, and lets you play with it, however, this link Mozilla CSS getComputedValue doc talks about the getComputedValue function in detail, and should be read by any aspiring developer who isn't totally clear on this subject.
As a side note, the getComputedValue method only gets, it does not set. This, obviously is a major downside, however there is a method that gets from CSS style-sheets, as well as sets values, though it is not standard Javascript.
The JQuery method...
$(selector).css(property,value)
...does get, and does set. It is what I use, the only downside is you got to know JQuery, but this is honestly one of the very many good reasons that every Javascript Developer should learn JQuery, it just makes life easy, and offers methods, like this one, which is not available with standard Javascript.
Hope this helps someone!!!
For anyone looking to set the value of a nested variable, here is how to do it:
const _ = require('lodash'); //import lodash module
var object = { 'a': [{ 'b': { 'c': 3 } }] };
_.set(object, 'a[0].b.c', 4);
console.log(object.a[0].b.c);
// => 4
Documentation: https://lodash.com/docs/4.17.15#set
Also, documentation if you want to get a value: https://lodash.com/docs/4.17.15#get
You can do dynamically access the property of an object using the bracket notation. This would look like this obj[yourKey] however JavaScript objects are really not designed to dynamically updated or read. They are intended to be defined on initialisation.
In case you want to dynamically assign and access key value pairs you should use a map instead.
const yourKey = 'yourKey';
// initialise it with the value
const map1 = new Map([
['yourKey', 'yourValue']
]);
// initialise empty then dynamically assign
const map2 = new Map();
map2.set(yourKey, 'yourValue');
console.log(map1.get(yourKey));
console.log(map2.get(yourKey));
demo object example
let obj = {
name: {
first_name: "Bugs",
last_name: "Founder",
role: "Programmer"
}
}
dotted string key for getting the value of
let key = "name.first_name"
Function
const getValueByDottedKeys = (obj, strKey)=>{
let keys = strKey.split(".")
let value = obj[keys[0]];
for(let i=1;i<keys.length;i++){
value = value[keys[i]]
}
return value
}
Calling getValueByDottedKeys function
value = getValueByDottedKeys(obj, key)
console.log(value)
output
Bugs
const getValueByDottedKeys = (obj, strKey)=>{
let keys = strKey.split(".")
let value = obj[keys[0]];
for(let i=1;i<keys.length;i++){
value = value[keys[i]]
}
return value
}
let obj = {
name: {
first_name: "Bugs",
last_name: "Founder",
role: "Programmer"
}
}
let key = "name.first_name"
value = getValueByDottedKeys(obj, key)
console.log(value)
I bumped into the same problem, but the lodash module is limited when handling nested properties. I wrote a more general solution following the idea of a recursive descendent parser. This solution is available in the following Gist:
Recursive descent object dereferencing
Finding Object by reference without, strings,
Note make sure the object you pass in is cloned , i use cloneDeep from lodash for that
if object looks like
const obj = {data: ['an Object',{person: {name: {first:'nick', last:'gray'} }]
path looks like
const objectPath = ['data',1,'person',name','last']
then call below method and it will return the sub object by path given
const child = findObjectByPath(obj, objectPath)
alert( child) // alerts "last"
const findObjectByPath = (objectIn: any, path: any[]) => {
let obj = objectIn
for (let i = 0; i <= path.length - 1; i++) {
const item = path[i]
// keep going up to the next parent
obj = obj[item] // this is by reference
}
return obj
}
You can use getter in Javascript
getter Docs
Check inside the Object whether the property in question exists,
If it does not exist, take it from the window
const something = {
get: (n) => this.n || something.n || window[n]
};
You should use JSON.parse, take a look at https://www.w3schools.com/js/js_json_parse.asp
const obj = JSON.parse('{ "name":"John", "age":30, "city":"New York"}')
console.log(obj.name)
console.log(obj.age)
Is there a better way to validate a row in ag-grid than with valueSetter?
I can achieve the validation with that but I am not sure, if there is a better way.
https://www.ag-grid.com/javascript-grid-value-setters/#properties-for-setters-and-parsers
I want to validate two fields in the row. DateFrom and DateUntil (they are not allow to be null and DateFrom must be lower than DateUntil).
There are two ways of possible validation handling:
First: via ValueSetter function
and
Second: via custom cellEditor component
I suggest that it would be better to split the logic between custom components, but as you said you need to validate two cell-values between themselves.
On this case from UI perspective you could try to combine them inside one cell and it would be easily to work with values via one component only.
You could override the valueSetter and call the grid api transaction update instead.
Here is pseudo-code that shows how you could implement this.
valueSetter: params => {
validate(params.newValue, onSuccess, onFail);
return false;
};
validate = (newvalue, success, fail) => {
if (isValid(newValue)) {
success();
} else {
fail();
}
};
onSuccess = () => {
// do transaction update to update the cell with the new value
};
onFail = () => {
// update some meta data property that highlights the cell signalling that the value has failed to validate
};
This way you can also do asynchronous validation.
Here is a real example of an async value setter that has success, failure, and while validating handlers that do transaction updates when validation is done.
const asyncValidator = (
newValue,
validateFn,
onWhileValidating,
onSuccess,
_onFail
) => {
onWhileValidating();
setTimeout(function() {
if (validateFn(newValue)) {
onSuccess();
} else {
_onFail();
}
}, 1000);
};
const _onWhileValidating = params => () => {
let data = params.data;
let field = params.colDef.field;
data[field] = {
...data[field],
isValidating: true
};
params.api.applyTransaction({ update: [data] });
};
const _onSuccess = params => () => {
let data = params.data;
let field = params.colDef.field;
data[field] = {
...data[field],
isValidating: false,
lastValidation: true,
value: params.newValue
};
params.api.applyTransaction({ update: [data] });
};
const _onFail = params => () => {
let data = params.data;
let field = params.colDef.field;
data[field] = {
...data[field],
isValidating: false,
lastValidation: params.newValue
};
params.api.applyTransaction({ update: [data] });
};
const asyncValidateValueSetter = validateFn => params => {
asyncValidator(
params.newValue,
validateFn,
_onWhileValidating(params),
_onSuccess(params),
_onFail(params)
);
return false;
};
Here is a code runner example showing this in action: https://stackblitz.com/edit/async-validation-ag-grid-final
Have a look at this two snippets, these come from our internal knowledge base (accessible to customers)
When editing a value in column 'A (Required)', you will see that it does not allow you to leave it empty. If you leave it empty and return the edit, it will be cancelled.
//Force Cell to require a value when finished editing
https://plnkr.co/edit/GFgb4v7P8YCW1PxJwGTx?p=preview
In this example, we are using a Custom Cell Editor that will also validate the values against a 6 character length rule. While editing, if the value is modified outside of 6 characters, it will appear in red, and when you stop editing the row, the value would be reset, so it only accepts a complete edit if the value is valid.
//Inline Validation while editing a cell
https://plnkr.co/edit/dAAU8yLMnR8dm4vNEa9T?p=preview
I'd like to compare the new/incoming value of a property with the previous value of that property (what is currently saved in the db) within a pre('save') middleware.
Does Mongoose provide a facility for doing this?
The accepted answer works very nicely. An alternative syntax can also be used, with the setter inline with the Schema definition:
var Person = new mongoose.Schema({
name: {
type: String,
set: function(name) {
this._previousName = this.name;
return name;
}
});
Person.pre('save', function (next) {
var previousName = this._previousName;
if(someCondition) {
...
}
next();
});
Mongoose allows you to configure custom setters in which you do the comparison. pre('save') by itself won't give you what you need, but together:
schema.path('name').set(function (newVal) {
var originalVal = this.name;
if (someThing) {
this._customState = true;
}
});
schema.pre('save', function (next) {
if (this._customState) {
...
}
next();
})
I was looking for a solution to detect changes in any one of multiple fields. Since it looks like you can't create a setter for the full schema, I used a virtual property. I'm only updating records in a few places so this is a fairly efficient solution for that kind of situation:
Person.virtual('previousDoc').get(function() {
return this._previousDoc;
}).set(function(value) {
this._previousDoc = value;
});
Let's say your Person moves and you need to update his address:
const person = await Person.findOne({firstName: "John", lastName: "Doe"});
person.previousDoc = person.toObject(); // create a deep copy of the previous doc
person.address = "123 Stack Road";
person.city = "Overflow";
person.state = "CA";
person.save();
Then in your pre hooks, you would just need to reference properties of _previousDoc such as:
// fallback to empty object in case you don't always want to check the previous state
const previous = this._previousDoc || {};
if (this.address !== previous.address) {
// do something
}
// you could also assign custom properties to _previousDoc that are not in your schema to allow further customization
if (previous.userAddressChange) {
} else if (previous.adminAddressChange) {
}
Honestly, I tried the solutions posted here, but I had to create a function that would store the old values in an array, save the values, and then see the difference.
// Stores all of the old values of the instance into oldValues
const oldValues = {};
for (let key of Object.keys(input)) {
if (self[key] != undefined) {
oldValues[key] = self[key].toString();
}
// Saves the input values to the instance
self[key] = input[key];
}
yield self.save();
for (let key of Object.keys(newValues)) {
if (oldValues[key] != newValues[key]) {
// Do what you need to do
}
}
What I do is use this.constructor within the pre-save route to access the current value in the database.
const oldData = this.constructor.findById(this.id)
You can then grab the specific key you're looking for from the oldData to work with as you see fit :)
let name = oldData.name
Note that this works well for simple data such as strings, but I have found that it does not work well for subschema, as mongoose has built in functionality that runs first. Thus, sometimes your oldData will match your newData for a subschema. This can be resolved by giving it it's own pre-save route!
I'm writing a tinyMce plugin which contains a section of code, replacing one element for another. I'm using the editor's dom instance to create the node I want to insert, and I'm using the same instance to do the replacement.
My code is as follows:
var nodeData =
{
"data-widgetId": data.widget.widgetKey(),
"data-instanceKey": "instance1",
src: "/content/images/icon48/cog.png",
class: "widgetPlaceholder",
title: data.widget.getInfo().name
};
var nodeToInsert = ed.dom.create("img", nodeData);
// Insert this content into the editor window
if (data.mode == 'add') {
tinymce.DOM.add(ed.getBody(), nodeToInsert);
}
else if (data.mode == 'edit' && data.selected != null) {
var instanceKey = $(data.selected).attr("data-instancekey");
var elementToReplace = tinymce.DOM.select("[data-instancekey=" + instanceKey + "]");
if (elementToReplace.length === 1) {
ed.dom.replace(elementToReplace[0], nodeToInsert);
}
else {
throw new "No element to replace with that instance key";
}
}
TinyMCE breaks during the replace, here:
replace : function(n, o, k) {
var t = this;
if (is(o, 'array'))
n = n.cloneNode(true);
return t.run(o, function(o) {
if (k) {
each(tinymce.grep(o.childNodes), function(c) {
n.appendChild(c);
});
}
return o.parentNode.replaceChild(n, o);
});
},
..with the error Cannot call method 'replaceChild' of null.
I've verified that the two argument's being passed into replace() are not null and that their parentNode fields are instantiated. I've also taken care to make sure that the elements are being created and replace using the same document instance (I understand I.E has an issue with this).
I've done all this development in Google Chrome, but I receive the same errors in Firefox 4 and IE8 also. Has anyone else come across this?
Thanks in advance
As it turns out, I was simply passing in the arguments in the wrong order. I should have been passing the node I wanted to insert first, and the node I wanted to replace second.