Accessing nested JavaScript objects and arrays by string path

This will probably never see the light of day... but here it is anyway.

1. Replace [] bracket syntax with .
2. Split on . character
3. Remove blank strings
4. Find the path (otherwise undefined)

(For finding a path to an object, use this pathTo solution.)

// "one liner" (ES6)

const deep_value = (obj, path) => 
path
    .replace(/\[|\]\.?/g, '.')
    .split('.')
    .filter(s => s)
    .reduce((acc, val) => acc && acc[val], obj);
    
// ... and that's it.

var someObject = {
    'part1' : {
        'name': 'Part 1',
        'size': '20',
        'qty' : '50'
    },
    'part2' : {
        'name': 'Part 2',
        'size': '15',
        'qty' : '60'
    },
    'part3' : [
        {
            'name': 'Part 3A',
            'size': '10',
            'qty' : '20'
        }
        // ...
    ],
    'pa[rt3' : [
        {
            'name': 'Part 3A',
            'size': '10',
            'qty' : '20'
        }
        // ...
    ]
};

console.log(deep_value(someObject, "part1.name"));               // Part 1
console.log(deep_value(someObject, "part2.qty"));                // 60
console.log(deep_value(someObject, "part3[0].name"));            // Part 3A
console.log(deep_value(someObject, "part3[0].....name"));        // Part 3A - invalid blank paths removed
console.log(deep_value(someObject, "pa[rt3[0].name"));           // undefined - name does not support square brackets

Instead of trying to emulate JS syntax which you will have to spend a bunch of compute parsing, or just get wrong/forget things like a bunch of these answers (keys with .s in, anyone?), just use an array of keys.

var part1name     = Object.get(someObject, ['part1', 'name']);
var part2quantity = Object.get(someObject, ['part2', 'qty']);
var part3name1    = Object.get(someObject, ['part3', 0, 'name']);

If you need to use a single string instead, simply JSONify it.
Another improvement in this method is that you can delete/set the root level object.

function resolve(obj, path) {
    let root = obj = [obj];
    path = [0, ...path];
    while (path.length > 1)
        obj = obj[path.shift()];
    return [obj, path[0], root];
}
Object.get = (obj, path) => {
    let [parent, key] = resolve(obj, path);
    return parent[key];
};
Object.del = (obj, path) => {
    let [parent, key, root] = resolve(obj, path);
    delete parent[key];
    return root[0];
};
Object.set = (obj, path, value) => {
    let [parent, key, root] = resolve(obj, path);
    parent[key] = value;
    return root[0];
};

Demo of other features:

The bob = for .set(/.del( isn't necessary unless your path might be empty (manipulating the root object).
I prove that I don't clone the object by using steve to keep a reference to the original and checking bob == steve //true after that first .set(

Just in case, anyone's visiting this question in 2017 or later and looking for an easy-to-remember way, here's an elaborate blog post on Accessing Nested Objects in JavaScript without being bamboozled by

Cannot read property 'foo' of undefined error

Access Nested Objects Using Array Reduce

Let's take this example structure

const user = {
    id: 101,
    email: 'jack@dev.com',
    personalInfo: {
        name: 'Jack',
        address: [{
            line1: 'westwish st',
            line2: 'washmasher',
            city: 'wallas',
            state: 'WX'
        }]
    }
}

To be able to access nested arrays, you can write your own array reduce util.

const getNestedObject = (nestedObj, pathArr) => {
    return pathArr.reduce((obj, key) =>
        (obj && obj[key] !== 'undefined') ? obj[key] : undefined, nestedObj);
}

// pass in your object structure as array elements
const name = getNestedObject(user, ['personalInfo', 'name']);

// to access nested array, just pass in array index as an element the path array.
const city = getNestedObject(user, ['personalInfo', 'address', 0, 'city']);
// this will return the city from the first address item.

There is also an excellent type handling minimal library typy that does all this for you.

With typy, your code will look like this

const city = t(user, 'personalInfo.address[0].city').safeObject;

Disclaimer: I am the author of this package.

If you want a solution that can properly detect and report details of any issue with the path parsing, I wrote my own solution to this - library path-value.

const {resolveValue} = require('path-value');

resolveValue(someObject, 'part1.name'); //=> Part 1
resolveValue(someObject, 'part2.qty'); //=> 50
resolveValue(someObject, 'part3.0.name'); //=> Part 3A

Note that for indexes we use .0, and not [0], because parsing the latter adds a performance penalty, while .0 works directly in JavaScript, and is thus very fast.

However, full ES5 JavaScript syntax is also supported, it just needs to be tokenized first:

const {resolveValue, tokenizePath} = require('path-value');

const path = tokenizePath('part3[0].name'); //=> ['part3', '0', 'name']

resolveValue(someObject, path); //=> Part 3A

I'm developing online-shop with React. I tried to change values in copied state object to update original state with it on submit. Examples above haven't worked for me, because most of them mutate structure of copied object. I found working example of the function for accessing and changing values of the deep nested object properties: https://lowrey.me/create-an-object-by-path-in-javascript-2/ Here it is:

const createPath = (obj, path, value = null) => {
  path = typeof path === 'string' ? path.split('.') : path;
  let current = obj;
  while (path.length > 1) {
    const [head, ...tail] = path;
    path = tail;
    if (current[head] === undefined) {
      current[head] = {};
    }
    current = current[head];
  }
  current[path[0]] = value;
  return obj;
};

You can use ramda library.

Learning ramda also helps you to work with immutable objects easily.

var obj = {
  a:{
    b: {
      c:[100,101,{
        d: 1000
      }]
    }
  }
};


var lens = R.lensPath('a.b.c.2.d'.split('.'));
var result = R.view(lens, obj);

https://codepen.io/ghominejad/pen/BayJZOQ

Based on Alnitak's answer.

I wrapped the polyfill in a check, and reduced the function to a single chained reduction.

if (Object.byPath === undefined) {
  Object.byPath = (obj, path) => path
    .replace(/\[(\w+)\]/g, '.$1')
    .replace(/^\./, '')
    .split(/\./g)
    .reduce((ref, key) => key in ref ? ref[key] : ref, obj)
}

const data = {
  foo: {
    bar: [{
      baz: 1
    }]
  }
}

console.log(Object.byPath(data, 'foo.bar[0].baz'))

This can be simplified by splitting the logic into three separate functions:

const isVal = a => a != null; // everything except undefined + null

const prop = prop => obj => {
    if (isVal(obj)) {
        const value = obj[prop];
        if (isVal(value)) return value;
        else return undefined;
    } else return undefined;
};

const path = paths => obj => {
    const pathList = typeof paths === 'string' ? paths.split('.') : paths;
    return pathList.reduce((value, key) => prop(key)(value), obj);
};

//usage:
const myObject = { foo: { bar: { baz: 'taco' } } };
const result = path('foo.bar')(myObject);
//results => { baz: 'taco' }

This variation supports:

• passing an array or string argument
• dealing with undefined values during invocation and execution
• testing each function independently
• using each function independently

Based on a previous answer, I have created a function that can also handle brackets. But no dots inside them due to the split.

function get(obj, str) {
  return str.split(/\.|\[/g).map(function(crumb) {
    return crumb.replace(/\]$/, '').trim().replace(/^(["'])((?:(?!\1)[^\\]|\\.)*?)\1$/, (match, quote, str) => str.replace(/\\(\\)?/g, "$1"));
  }).reduce(function(obj, prop) {
    return obj ? obj[prop] : undefined;
  }, obj);
}

Inspired by @webjay's answer: https://stackoverflow.com/a/46008856/4110122

I made this function which can you use it to Get/ Set/ Unset any value in object

function Object_Manager(obj, Path, value, Action) 
{
    try
    {
        if(Array.isArray(Path) == false)
        {
            Path = [Path];
        }

        let level = 0;
        var Return_Value;
        Path.reduce((a, b)=>{
            level++;
            if (level === Path.length)
            {
                if(Action === 'Set')
                {
                    a[b] = value;
                    return value;
                }
                else if(Action === 'Get')
                {
                    Return_Value = a[b];
                }
                else if(Action === 'Unset')
                {
                    delete a[b];
                }
            } 
            else 
            {
                return a[b];
            }
        }, obj);
        return Return_Value;
    }

    catch(err)
    {
        console.error(err);
        return obj;
    }
}

To use it:

 // Set
 Object_Manager(Obj,[Level1,Level2,Level3],New_Value, 'Set');

 // Get
 Object_Manager(Obj,[Level1,Level2,Level3],'', 'Get');

 // Unset
 Object_Manager(Obj,[Level1,Level2,Level3],'', 'Unset');

Extension of Mohamad Hamouday' Answer will fill in missing keys

function Object_Manager(obj, Path, value, Action, strict) 
{
    try
    {
        if(Array.isArray(Path) == false)
        {
            Path = [Path];
        }

        let level = 0;
        var Return_Value;
        Path.reduce((a, b)=>{
            console.log(level,':',a, '|||',b)
            if (!strict){
              if (!(b in a)) a[b] = {}
            }


            level++;
            if (level === Path.length)
            {
                if(Action === 'Set')
                {
                    a[b] = value;
                    return value;
                }
                else if(Action === 'Get')
                {
                    Return_Value = a[b];
                }
                else if(Action === 'Unset')
                {
                    delete a[b];
                }
            } 
            else 
            {
                return a[b];
            }
        }, obj);
        return Return_Value;
    }

    catch(err)
    {
        console.error(err);
        return obj;
    }
}

Example

obja = {
  "a": {
    "b":"nom"
  }
}

// Set
path = "c.b" // Path does not exist
Object_Manager(obja,path.split('.'), 'test_new_val', 'Set', false);

// Expected Output: Object { a: Object { b: "nom" }, c: Object { b: "test_new_value" } }

AngularJS has $scope.$eval

With AngularJS, one can use the $scope.$eval method to access nested objects:

$scope.someObject = someObject;
console.log( $scope.$eval("someObject.part3[0].name") ); //Part 3A

For more information, see

• AngularJS $scope API Reference - $eval

The DEMO

angular.module("app",[])
.run(function($rootScope) {
     $rootScope.someObject = {
         'part2' : {
              'name': 'Part 2',
              'size': '15',
              'qty' : '60'
         },
         'part3' : [{
              'name': 'Part 3A',
              'size': '10',
              'qty' : '20'
         },{
              name: 'Part 3B'           
         }]
     };
     console.log(
         "part3[0].name =",
         $rootScope.$eval("someObject.part3[0].name")
    );
})

<script src="//unpkg.com/angular/angular.js"></script>
<body ng-app="app"
</body>

Note that the following will not work for all valid unicode property names (but neither will any of the other answers as far as I can tell).

const PATTERN = /[\^|\[|\.]([$|\w]+)/gu

function propValue(o, s) {
    const names = []
    for(let [, name] of [...s.matchAll(PATTERN)]) 
        names.push(name)
    return names.reduce((p, propName) => {
        if(!p.hasOwnProperty(propName)) 
            throw 'invalid property name'
        return p[propName]
    }, o)
}

let path = 'myObject.1._property2[0][0].$property3'
let o = {
    1: {
        _property2: [
            [{
                $property3: 'Hello World'
            }]
        ]
    }
}
console.log(propValue(o, path)) // 'Hello World'

Using object-scan this becomes a one liner. However more importantly this solution considers performance:

• input traversed once during search (even if multiple keys are queried)
• parsing only happens once on init (in case multiple objects are queried)
• allow for extended syntax using *

// const objectScan = require('object-scan');

const someObject = { part1: { name: 'Part 1', size: '20', qty: '50' }, part2: { name: 'Part 2', size: '15', qty: '60' }, part3: [{ name: 'Part 3A', size: '10', qty: '20' }, { name: 'Part 3B', size: '5', qty: '20' }, { name: 'Part 3C', size: '7.5', qty: '20' }] };

const get = (haystack, needle) => objectScan([needle], { rtn: 'value', abort: true })(haystack);

console.log(get(someObject, 'part1.name'));
// => Part 1
console.log(get(someObject, 'part2.qty'));
// => 60
console.log(get(someObject, 'part3[0].name'));
// => Part 3A

const getAll = (haystack, ...needles) => objectScan(needles, { reverse: false, rtn: 'entry', joined: true })(haystack);

console.log(getAll(someObject, 'part1.name', 'part2.qty', 'part3[0].name'));
/* =>
[ [ 'part1.name', 'Part 1' ],
  [ 'part2.qty', '60' ],
  [ 'part3[0].name', 'Part 3A' ] ]
 */

console.log(getAll(someObject, 'part1.*'));
/* =>
[ [ 'part1.name', 'Part 1' ],
  [ 'part1.size', '20' ],
  [ 'part1.qty', '50' ] ]
 */

.as-console-wrapper {max-height: 100% !important; top: 0}

<script src="https://bundle.run/object-scan@13.8.0"></script>

Disclaimer: I'm the author of object-scan

My solution is based on that given by @AdrianoSpadoni and addresses a need to clone the object

function generateData(object: any, path: string, value: any): object {
  const clone = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(object));
  path
    .split(".")
    .reduce(
    (o, p, i) => (o[p] = path.split(".").length === ++i ? value : o[p] || {}),
  clone
);
  return clone;
}

I've looked on all the other answers, decided to add improvements into more readable code:

function getObjectValByString(obj, str) {
if (typeof obj === "string") return obj;

const fields = str.split(".");

return getObjectValByString(obj[fields[0]], fields.slice(1).join("."));}

heres a code snippet:

let someObject = {
    partner: {
        id: "AIM",
        person: {
            name: "ANT",
            an: { name: "ESM" },
        },
    },
};

function getObjectValByString(obj, str) {
    if (typeof obj === "string") return obj;

    const fields = str.split(".");

    return getObjectValByString(obj[fields[0]], fields.slice(1).join("."));
}

const result = getObjectValByString(someObject, "partner.person.an.name");
console.log({
    result,
});

What about this solution:

setJsonValue: function (json, field, val) {
  if (field !== undefined){
    try {
      eval("json." + field + " = val");
    }
    catch(e){
      ;
    }
  }  
}

And this one, for getting:

getJsonValue: function (json, field){
  var value = undefined;
  if (field !== undefined) {
    try {
      eval("value = json." + field);
    } 
    catch(e){
      ;
    }
  }
  return value;
};

Probably some will consider them unsafe, but they must be much faster then, parsing the string.

Instead of a string an array can be used adressing nested objects and arrays e.g.: ["my_field", "another_field", 0, "last_field", 10]

Here is an example that would change a field based on this array representation. I am using something like that in react.js for controlled input fields that change the state of nested structures.

let state = {
        test: "test_value",
        nested: {
            level1: "level1 value"
        },
        arr: [1, 2, 3],
        nested_arr: {
            arr: ["buh", "bah", "foo"]
        }
    }

function handleChange(value, fields) {
    let update_field = state;
    for(var i = 0; i < fields.length - 1; i++){
        update_field = update_field[fields[i]];
    }
    update_field[fields[fields.length-1]] = value;
}

handleChange("update", ["test"]);
handleChange("update_nested", ["nested","level1"]);
handleChange(100, ["arr",0]);
handleChange('changed_foo', ["nested_arr", "arr", 3]);
console.log(state);

Working with Underscore's property or propertyOf:

var test = {
  foo: {
    bar: {
      baz: 'hello'
    }
  }
}
var string = 'foo.bar.baz';


// document.write(_.propertyOf(test)(string.split('.')))

document.write(_.property(string.split('.'))(test));

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.9.1/underscore-min.js"></script>

Good Luck...

React example - Using lodash

This may not be the most efficient way, from a performance perspective, but if your app is some monolith it sure as heck will save you some time. Especially, when you are tightly coupling your state data format to an API back-end.

   import set from "lodash/set";  // More efficient import

    class UserProfile extends Component {

      constructor(props){
        super(props);

        this.state = {
          user: {
            account: {
              id: "",
              email: "",
              first_name: ""
            }
          }
        }
      }

       /**
       * Updates the state based on the form input
       * 
       * @param {FormUpdate} event 
       */
      userAccountFormHook(event) {
        // https://lodash.com/docs#get
        // https://lodash.com/docs#set
        const { name, value } = event.target;
        let current_state = this.state
        set(current_state, name, value)  // Magic happens here
        this.setState(current_state);
      }

    render() {
        return (
          <CustomFormInput
            label: "First Name"
            type: "text"
            placeholder: "First Name"
            name: "user.account.first_name"
            onChange: {this.userAccountFormHook}
            value: {this.state.user.account.first_name}

          />
      )
  }
}

Starting from @Alnitak answer I built this source, which downloads an actual .JSON file and processes it, printing to console explanatory strings for each step, and more details in case of wrong key passed:

<!DOCTYPE HTML PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN">
<html>
  <head>
  <script>
function retrieveURL(url) {
        var client = new XMLHttpRequest();
        prefix = "https://cors-anywhere.herokuapp.com/"
        client.open('GET', prefix + url);
        client.responseType = 'text';
        client.onload = function() {
            response = client.response; // Load remote response.
            console.log("Response received.");
            parsedJSON  = JSON.parse(response);
            console.log(parsedJSON);
            console.log(JSONitemByPath(parsedJSON,"geometry[6].obs[3].latituade"));
            return response;
        };
        try {
            client.send();
        } catch(e) {
            console.log("NETWORK ERROR!");
            console.log(e);
        }
}



function JSONitemByPath(o, s) {
    structure = "";
    originalString = s;
    console.log("Received string: ", s);
    s = s.replace(/\[(\w+)\]/g, '.$1'); // convert indexes to properties
    console.log("Converted to   : ", s);
    s = s.replace(/^\./, '');           // strip a leading dot
    var a = s.split('.');

    console.log("Single keys to parse: ",a);

    for (var i = 0, n = a.length; i < n; ++i) {
        var k = a[i];
        if (k in o) {
            o = o[k];
            console.log("object." + structure +  a[i], o);
            structure +=  a[i] + ".";
        } else {
            console.log("ERROR: wrong path passed: ", originalString);
            console.log("       Last working level: ", structure.substr(0,structure.length-1));
            console.log("       Contents: ", o);
            console.log("       Available/passed key: ");
            Object.keys(o).forEach((prop)=> console.log("       "+prop +"/" + k));
            return;
        }
    }
    return o;
}


function main() {
    rawJSON = retrieveURL("http://haya2now.jp/data/data.json");
}

</script>
  </head>
  <body onload="main()">
  </body>
</html>

Output example:

Response received.
json-querier.html:17 {geometry: Array(7), error: Array(0), status: {…}}
json-querier.html:34 Received string:  geometry[6].obs[3].latituade
json-querier.html:36 Converted to   :  geometry.6.obs.3.latituade
json-querier.html:40 Single keys to parse:  (5) ["geometry", "6", "obs", "3", "latituade"]
json-querier.html:46 object.geometry (7) [{…}, {…}, {…}, {…}, {…}, {…}, {…}]
json-querier.html:46 object.geometry.6 {hayabusa2: {…}, earth: {…}, obs: Array(6), TT: 2458816.04973593, ryugu: {…}, …}
json-querier.html:46 object.geometry.6.obs (6) [{…}, {…}, {…}, {…}, {…}, {…}]
json-querier.html:46 object.geometry.6.obs.3 {longitude: 148.98, hayabusa2: {…}, sun: {…}, name: "DSS-43", latitude: -35.4, …}
json-querier.html:49 ERROR: wrong path passed:  geometry[6].obs[3].latituade
json-querier.html:50        Last working level:  geometry.6.obs.3
json-querier.html:51        Contents:  {longitude: 148.98, hayabusa2: {…}, sun: {…}, name: "DSS-43", latitude: -35.4, …}
json-querier.html:52        Available/passed key: 
json-querier.html:53        longitude/latituade
json-querier.html:53        hayabusa2/latituade
json-querier.html:53        sun/latituade
json-querier.html:53        name/latituade
json-querier.html:53        latitude/latituade
json-querier.html:53        altitude/latituade
json-querier.html:18 undefined