Question

As many of you are aware, the javascript delete keyword is a little tricky to use (see here). Is it possible to re-implement, or modify it? I have an object referenced multiple times and I want delete to remove all the references first. Like so:

var oj = new OrangeJuice();
var juice = oj;
var beverage = oj;
var allRightSunnyD = oj;
delete oj; //I want this to delete the actual object

I do not expect the garbage collector to find all of the references, lets say I know where the references are, i just want to re-implement delete to also get rid of juice, beverage and allRightSunnyD. I realize I could just implement a OrangeJuice.delete() function, but I wanted to know if there was a way to do it right. Like if javascript would call an onDelete() callback function prior to deleting objects.

Answer 1

1. delete is a keyword, so it should not be altered even if you can
2. delete is for deleting properties of objects, so you can not delete objects contained in single variables

look here how garbage collection in Javascript is explained: How does garbage collection work in JavaScript?