dot-safe

The dot-safe function creates an object proxy that an be used to safely access object properties and manipulate arrays. It is intended to be used with unstructured data to avoid lots of (obj && obj.prop && obj.prop.foo) noise.

Usage

const safe = require("dot-safe");
const object = {}
const proxy = safe(object);

// set nested properties; intermediary objects created as needed
proxy.foo.bar = 13;

// push values onto arrays; array and intermediary objects created as needed
proxy.list.push(42);
proxy.list.push(23);

// safely access nested properties or pop from arrays
assert(proxy.foo.bar.valueOf() === 13);
assert(proxy.baz.bang.valueOf() === undefined);
assert(proxy.list.pop() === 23);
assert(proxy.baz.pop() === undefined);

// after all that, object now looks like:
// {
//   foo: {bar: 13},
//   list: [42]
// }

API

safe(object) => Proxy

Create an object proxy that can be used to safely access nested data within the object.

Performance Considerations

Each time a property is accessed, a new Proxy is created. If you are going to be accessing the same nested property of a particular object, consider saving the result for subsequent property access.

const proxy = safe(object);

// GOOD: do this
const status = proxy.info.status;
while (status.valueOf() === "incomplete") { ... }

// BAD: don't do this
while (proxy.info.status.valueOf() === "incomplete") { ... }