Question

I am reusing a function in my javascript for two places.

Within this method I make a call and retrieve a json object (data)

data[0].fields['status']

In one of the cases I know that the key ‘status’ won’t be there and I need to use a hardcoded value, but since the code is shared for both cases, I need to capture this case.

Is there a get method to check safely for the key and if it doesn’t exist I would use the hardcoded value?

data[0].fields.get('status') ?

Or is there is a better way?

Answer 1

Use the in operator to check whether a property is existent on an object:

if ('status' in data[0].fields) …

You also could use a simple boolean evaluation if your potential value is truthy, because the undefined evaluates to false. You can use that even in a short-circuit evaluation:

return data[0].fields.status || defaultstate;