JavaScript - Identify whether a property is defined and set to 'undefined', or undefined

Question

Say I have the following code:

function One() {}
One.prototype.x = undefined;

function Two() {}

var o = new One();
var t = new Two();

o.x and t.x will both evaluate to undefined. o.hasOwnProperty('x') and t.hasOwnProperty('x') will both return false; the same goes for propertyIsEnumerable. Two questions:

• Is there any way to tell that o.x is defined and set to undefined?
• Is there ever any reason to? (should the two be semantically equivalent?)

A small caveat: doing (for propName in o) loop will yield 'x' as one of the strings, while doing it in t will not - so there IS a difference in how they're represented internally (at least in Chrome).

Answer 1

A slightly simpler way than your method is to use the Javascript in operator

alert('x' in o); // true
alert('x' in t); // false

Answer 2

object.hasOwnProperty(name) only returns true for objects that are in the same object, and false for everything else, including properties in the prototype.

function x() {
  this.another=undefined;
};

x.prototype.something=1;
x.prototype.nothing=undefined;
y = new x;

y.hasOwnProperty("something"); //false
y.hasOwnProperty("nothing"); //false
y.hasOwnProperty("another"); //true

"someting" in y; //true
"another" in y; //true

Additionally the only way do delete a property is to use delete. Setting it to undefined do NOT delete it.

The proper way to do it is to use in like roborg said.

Update: undefined is a primitive value, see ECMAScript Language Specification section 4.3.2 and 4.3.9.

Answer 3

Ach, one for the anti-patterns thread there.

undefined is not a keyword.

When you assign write var foo = undefined; you are assigning it the value of the symbol undefined which you haven't defined and hence the value you'll get is "undefined". You would produce exactly the same result if you had assigned it UnDeFiNeD or NotFineAtAll or _qwertyuiop

Why is this so terrible? Well apart from the fact that it leads to a false understanding of what's going on, what happens if you happen to load a library or hire a dev who writes var undefined = true;

Answer 4

Something like this?

function isDefined(var){
   return (typeof(window[var]) == 'undefined') ? false : true;
}

or..

function isDefined(var){
   return (window.var === undefined) ? false : true;
}

Answer 5

No. I don't think a variable equal to undefined should be recognized as "defined".

Setting it equal to undefined directly is just a lazy way of deleting it -- as apposed to using the delete keyword. I believe this just means that garbage collection hasn't taken affect on the variable/property.

---

[EDIT]

Regarding your comment about hasOwnProperty and propertyIsEnumerable, prototype methods/properties are neither the object's own nor enumerable.

Object.prototype.foo = 'something';

var o = {bar: 'anything'};
o.hasOwnProperty('foo');  //=> false
o.hasOwnProperty('bar');  //=> true

Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty('foo');  //=> true

Answer 6

One way to do it is this:

var definedProperties = [];
for (var prop in o) definedProperties.push(prop);

if (o.x === undefined && contains(prop, 'x')) {
    //x is defined, but set to undefined
}

where contains just checks whether any element in the array is 'x'. Is this the only way?

Answer 7

You could try putting a watch on One.x but that would only tell you at the time it gets undefined.