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How to efficiently check if variable is Array or Object (in NodeJS & V8)?

Asked 2012-01-12T11:12:43.180
71

Is there any way to efficiently check if the variable is Object or Array, in NodeJS & V8?

I'm writing a Model for MongoDB and NodeJS, and to traverse the object tree I need to know if the object is simple (Number, String, ...) or composite (Hash, Array).

It seems that V8 has fast built-in Array.isArray, but how to check if object is an Object? I mean complex object like hash {} or instance of class, not something like new String()?

Usually it may be done as this:

Object.prototype.toString.call(object) == "[object Object]"

or this:

object === Object(object)

But it seems that this operations aren't cheap, maybe there's some more efficient? It's ok if it's not universal and doesn't works on all engines, I need it only to work on V8.

javascript node.js v8 instanceof typeof
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1 Answer

1

looking at jQuery they in there jQuery.isArray(...) they do:

    isArray = Array.isArray || function( obj ) {
    return jQuery.type(obj) === "array";
}

this leads us to: jQuery.type:

    type = function( obj ) {
    return obj == null ?
        String( obj ) :
        class2type[ toString.call(obj) ] || "object";
}

and again we have to look in: class2type

class2type = {};

// Populate the class2type map
jQuery.each("Boolean Number String Function Array Date RegExp Object".split(" "), function(i, name) {
    class2type[ "[object " + name + "]" ] = name.toLowerCase();
});

and in native JS:

var a, t = "Boolean Number String Function Array Date RegExp Object".split(" ");
for( a in t ) {
    class2type[ "[object " + t[a] + "]" ] = t[a].toLowerCase();
}

this ends up with:

var isArray = Array.isArray || function( obj ) {
    return toString.call(obj) === "[object Array]";
}
answered 2012-01-12T11:26:29.770

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