Object.create in JavaScript

The Object.create method is one of the methods to create a new object in JavaScript.

Other methods of creating objects in JavaScript are described in my previous article. I recommend reading my previous articles on Understanding Prototypes and Inheritance to get the best out of this article.

Basic syntax:

Object.create(prototype_object, propertiesObject)

Object.create method accepts two arguments as:

1. prototypeObject: Newly created object’s prototype object. It has to be an object or null.
2. propertiesObject: Properties of the new object. This argument is optional

Create an object with Object.create with no prototype

Consider the below example to create a new object in JavaScript

Here, we have created a new object person using Object.create method. As we have passed null for the prototypeObject. person object does not have any prototype object.

Further, we have added name as a new property to the person object.

Create an object with prototype:

Console output:

In the above example, we have created a propertiesObject with fullName function. We created a person object with propertiesObject as a prototype object of the person’s object using Object.create. Further, we added firstName and lastName properties to the person object. Here, we have added firstName and lastName properties after the object creation. It would have been great if we could add these properties while creating the object. To do that, we will use the 2nd argument of Object.create method.

Object.create 2nd argument — propertiesObject

propertiesObject is used to create properties on a new object. It acts as a descriptor for the new properties to be defined. Descriptors can be data descriptor or access descriptors.

Data descriptors are

1. configurable
2. enumerable
3. value
4. writable

Access descriptors are

1. get
2. set

In detail, descriptors can be read here

Example:

In the above example, we have created a new object person with prototype object as prototypeObject and properties as firstName and lastName .

Properties firstName and lastName have been added using the 2nd parameter of the Object.create().

Inheritance using Object.create()

Read Inheritance in JavaScript before reading the below part.

Here we have copied the prototype of the SuperType to the SubType.prototype using. Object.create method. Rest everything is same as the inheritance in JavaScript.

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Other articles:

1. JavaScript Internals: JavaScript engine, Run-time environment & setTimeout Web API
2. Beginner’s guide to ReactJS
3. The Journey of JavaScript: from Downloading Scripts to Execution
4. Why Progressive Web Apps are great and how to build one
5. Let’s get this ‘this’ once and for all
6. Service Workers
7. Service Workers implementation
8. Execution Context in JavaScript
9. Virtual DOM in ReactJS
10. Prototypes in JavaScript
11. ‘this’ in JavaScript
12. Object.create in JavaScript
13. Inheritance in JavaScript
14. Create objects in JavaScript
15. Objects in JavaScript
16. Zip in Python
17. decorators in Python
18. Concatenating two lists in Python
19. lambda, map, and filter in Python
20. List comprehensions in Python