Native deep cloning
It's called "structured cloning", works experimentally in Node 11 and later, and hopefully will land in browsers. See this answer for more details.
Fast cloning with data loss - JSON.parse/stringify
If you do not use Date
s, functions, undefined
, Infinity
, RegExps, Maps, Sets, Blobs, FileLists, ImageDatas, sparse Arrays, Typed Arrays or other complex types within your object, a very simple one liner to deep clone an object is:
JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(object))
const a = {
string: 'string',
number: 123,
bool: false,
nul: null,
date: new Date(), // stringified
undef: undefined, // lost
inf: Infinity, // forced to 'null'
re: /.*/, // lost
}
console.log(a);
console.log(typeof a.date); // Date object
const clone = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(a));
console.log(clone);
console.log(typeof clone.date); // result of .toISOString()
See Corban's answer for benchmarks.
Reliable cloning using a library
Since cloning objects is not trivial (complex types, circular references, function etc.), most major libraries provide function to clone objects. Don't reinvent the wheel - if you're already using a library, check if it has an object cloning function. For example,
- lodash -
cloneDeep
; can be imported separately via the lodash.clonedeep module and is probably your best choice if you're not already using a library that provides a deep cloning function
- AngularJS -
angular.copy
- jQuery -
jQuery.extend(true, { }, oldObject)
; .clone()
only clones DOM elements
- just library -
just-clone
; Part of a library of zero-dependency npm modules that do just do one thing.
Guilt-free utilities for every occasion.
ES6 (shallow copy)
For completeness, note that ES6 offers two shallow copy mechanisms: Object.assign()
and the spread syntax.
which copies values of all enumerable own properties from one object to another. For example:
var A1 = {a: "2"};
var A2 = Object.assign({}, A1);
var A3 = {...A1}; // Spread Syntax
You can use the for-in
loop as shown by others. However, you also have to make sure that the key you get is an actual property of an object, and doesn't come from the prototype.
Here is the snippet:
var p = {
"p1": "value1",
"p2": "value2",
"p3": "value3"
};
for (var key in p) {
if (p.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
console.log(key + " -> " + p[key]);
}
}
For-of with Object.keys() alternative:
var p = {
0: "value1",
"b": "value2",
key: "value3"
};
for (var key of Object.keys(p)) {
console.log(key + " -> " + p[key])
}
Notice the use of for-of
instead of for-in
, if not used it will return undefined on named properties, and Object.keys()
ensures the use of only the object's own properties without the whole prototype-chain properties
Using the new Object.entries()
method:
Note: This method is not supported natively by Internet Explorer. You may consider using a Polyfill for older browsers.
const p = {
"p1": "value1",
"p2": "value2",
"p3": "value3"
};
for (let [key, value] of Object.entries(p)) {
console.log(`${key}: ${value}`);
}
Best Answer
Simple vanilla JS code sample:
Tested in Android.