A Function for Adding Properties to an Object Literal

Earlier in the Object Literals Tutorial we provided information on how to Add, Modify, and Access Properties of a JavaScript object literal. As we mentioned there, if you have a number of properties to add to an object, it can be helpful to have a function to do this for you. We present such a function here.

Starting with the following object literal:

var Object1 = {
    propA: 'some string value',
    propB: true
};

Suppose the following is an object literal whose properties you want to add to Object1:

var Object2 = {
    propC: 'Another property',
    propD: 'Me too!'
}

The augment function below provides the means to do so:

// add properties of Obj2 to Obj1
function augment(Obj1, Obj2) {
    var prop;
    for ( prop in Obj2 ) {
        if ( Obj2.hasOwnProperty(prop) && !Obj1[prop] ) {
            Obj1[prop] = Obj2[prop];
        }
    }
}

In the call to the augment function, the first argument is the object to which you want to add the second argument's properties:

augment(Object1, Object2);
// to verify Object2.propC is now in Object1 too
console.log(Object1.propC); // Another property

Since one purpose of object literals is to minimize impact on the global namespace, if the augment function is included as a method of an object or class in your library, you can enclose your new properties in an immediate function[1] and call the augment method without any additional impact on the global namespace.

(function(){
    // props to add to myObject
    var Obj = {
        propA: 'Another property',
        propB: 'Me too!'
    };
    // if augment is method of myLib object 
    myLib.augment(Object1, Obj);
}()); // invoke immediately

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