I need to be able to merge two (very simple) JavaScript objects at runtime. For example I'd like to:
var obj1 = { food: 'pizza', car: 'ford' }
var obj2 = { animal: 'dog' }
obj1.merge(obj2);
//obj1 now has three properties: food, car, and animal
Is there a built in way to do this? I do not need recursion, and I do not need to merge functions, just methods on flat objects.
ECMAScript 2018 Standard Method
You would use object spread:
let merged = {...obj1, ...obj2};
merged
is now the union of obj1
and obj2
. Properties in obj2
will overwrite those in obj1
.
/** There's no limit to the number of objects you can merge.
* Later properties overwrite earlier properties with the same name. */
const allRules = {...obj1, ...obj2, ...obj3};
Here is also the MDN documentation for this syntax. If you're using babel you'll need the @babel/plugin-proposal-object-rest-spread plugin for it to work (This plugin is included in @babel/preset-env
, in ES2018).
ECMAScript 2015 (ES6) Standard Method
/* For the case in question, you would do: */
Object.assign(obj1, obj2);
/** There's no limit to the number of objects you can merge.
* All objects get merged into the first object.
* Only the object in the first argument is mutated and returned.
* Later properties overwrite earlier properties with the same name. */
const allRules = Object.assign({}, obj1, obj2, obj3, etc);
(see MDN JavaScript Reference)
Method for ES5 and Earlier
for (var attrname in obj2) { obj1[attrname] = obj2[attrname]; }
Note that this will simply add all attributes of obj2
to obj1
which might not be what you want if you still want to use the unmodified obj1
.
If you're using a framework that craps all over your prototypes then you have to get fancier with checks like hasOwnProperty
, but that code will work for 99% of cases.
Example function:
/**
* Overwrites obj1's values with obj2's and adds obj2's if non existent in obj1
* @param obj1
* @param obj2
* @returns obj3 a new object based on obj1 and obj2
*/
function merge_options(obj1,obj2){
var obj3 = {};
for (var attrname in obj1) { obj3[attrname] = obj1[attrname]; }
for (var attrname in obj2) { obj3[attrname] = obj2[attrname]; }
return obj3;
}
additionally :- check this program for see differnce between Object.assign & spread syntax object literals