How to get a subset of a javascript object's properties

Question

Say I have an object:

elmo = { 
  color: 'red',
  annoying: true,
  height: 'unknown',
  meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
};

I want to make a new object with a subset of its properties.

 // pseudo code
 subset = elmo.slice('color', 'height')

 //=> { color: 'red', height: 'unknown' }

How may I achieve this?

Answer 1

Using Object Destructuring and Property Shorthand

const object = { a: 5, b: 6, c: 7  };
const picked = (({ a, c }) => ({ a, c }))(object);

console.log(picked); // { a: 5, c: 7 }

---

From Philipp Kewisch:

This is really just an anonymous function being called instantly. All of this can be found on the Destructuring Assignment page on MDN. Here is an expanded form

let unwrap = ({a, c}) => ({a, c});

let unwrap2 = function({a, c}) { return { a, c }; };

let picked = unwrap({ a: 5, b: 6, c: 7 });

let picked2 = unwrap2({a: 5, b: 6, c: 7})

console.log(picked)
console.log(picked2)

Answer 2

Two common approaches are destructuring and conventional Lodash-like pick/omit implementation. The major practical difference between them is that destructuring requires a list of keys to be static, can't omit them, includes non-existent picked keys, i.e. it's inclusive. This may or not be desirable and cannot be changed for destructuring syntax.

Given:

var obj = { 'foo-bar': 1, bar: 2, qux: 3 };

The expected result for regular picking of foo-bar, bar, baz keys:

{ 'foo-bar': 1, bar: 2 }

The expected result for inclusive picking:

{ 'foo-bar': 1, bar: 2, baz: undefined }

Destructuring

Destructuring syntax allows to destructure and recombine an object, with either function parameters or variables.

The limitation is that a list of keys is predefined, they cannot be listed as strings, as described in the question. Destructuring becomes more complicated if a key is non-alphanumeric, e.g. foo-bar.

The upside is that it's performant solution that is natural to ES6.

The downside is that a list of keys is duplicated, this results in verbose code in case a list is long. Since destructuring duplicates object literal syntax in this case, a list can be copied and pasted as is.

IIFE

const subset = (({ 'foo-bar': foo, bar, baz }) => ({ 'foo-bar': foo, bar, baz }))(obj);

Temporary variables

Can cause the collision of variable names in current scope:

const { 'foo-bar': foo, bar, baz } = obj;
const subset = { 'foo-bar': foo, bar, baz };

Block-level scope can be used to avoid this:

let subset;
{
  const { 'foo-bar': foo, bar, baz } = obj;
  subset = { 'foo-bar': foo, bar, baz };
}

A list of strings

Arbitrary list of picked keys consists of strings, as the question requires. This allows to not predefine them and use variables that contain key names, ['foo-bar', someKey, ...moreKeys].

ECMAScript 2017 has Object.entries and Array.prototype.includes, ECMAScript 2019 has Object.fromEntries, they can be polyfilled when needed.

One-liners

Considering that an object to pick contains extra keys, it's generally more efficient to iterate over keys from a list rather than object keys, and vice versa if keys need to be omitted.

Pick (ES5)

var subset = ['foo-bar', 'bar', 'baz']
.reduce(function (obj2, key) {
  if (key in obj) // line can be removed to make it inclusive
    obj2[key] = obj[key];
  return obj2;
}, {});

Omit (ES5)

var subset = Object.keys(obj)
.filter(function (key) { 
  return ['baz', 'qux'].indexOf(key) < 0;
})
.reduce(function (obj2, key) {
  obj2[key] = obj[key];
  return obj2;
}, {});

Pick (ES6)

const subset = ['foo-bar', 'bar', 'baz']
.filter(key => key in obj) // line can be removed to make it inclusive
.reduce((obj2, key) => (obj2[key] = obj[key], obj2), {});

Omit (ES6)

const subset = Object.keys(obj)
.filter(key => ['baz', 'qux'].indexOf(key) < 0)
.reduce((obj2, key) => (obj2[key] = obj[key], obj2), {});

Pick (ES2019)

const subset = Object.fromEntries(
  ['foo-bar', 'bar', 'baz']
  .filter(key => key in obj) // line can be removed to make it inclusive
  .map(key => [key, obj[key]])
);

Omit (ES2019)

const subset = Object.fromEntries(
  Object.entries(obj)
  .filter(([key]) => !['baz', 'qux'].includes(key))
);

Reusable functions

One-liners can be represented as reusable helper functions similar to Lodash pick or omit, where a list of keys is passed through arguments, pick(obj, 'foo-bar', 'bar', 'baz').

JavaScript

const pick = (obj, ...keys) => Object.fromEntries(
  keys
  .filter(key => key in obj)
  .map(key => [key, obj[key]])
);

const inclusivePick = (obj, ...keys) => Object.fromEntries(
  keys.map(key => [key, obj[key]])
);

const omit = (obj, ...keys) => Object.fromEntries(
  Object.entries(obj)
  .filter(([key]) => !keys.includes(key))
);

TypeScript

Credit goes to @Claude.

const pick = <T extends {}, K extends keyof T>(obj: T, ...keys: K[]) => (
  Object.fromEntries(
    keys
    .filter(key => key in obj)
    .map(key => [key, obj[key]])
  ) as Pick<T, K>
);

const inclusivePick = <T extends {}, K extends (string | number | symbol)>(
  obj: T, ...keys: K[]
) => (
  Object.fromEntries(
    keys
    .map(key => [key, obj[key as unknown as keyof T]])
  ) as {[key in K]: key extends keyof T ? T[key] : undefined}
)

const omit = <T extends {}, K extends keyof T>(
  obj: T, ...keys: K[]
) =>(
  Object.fromEntries(
    Object.entries(obj)
    .filter(([key]) => !keys.includes(key as K))
  ) as Omit<T, K>
)

Answer 3

I suggest taking a look at Lodash; it has a lot of great utility functions.

For example pick() would be exactly what you seek:

var subset = _.pick(elmo, ['color', 'height']);

fiddle

Answer 4

If you are using ES6 there is a very concise way to do this using destructuring. Destructuring allows you to easily add on to objects using a spread, but it also allows you to make subset objects in the same way.

const object = {
  a: 'a',
  b: 'b',
  c: 'c',
  d: 'd',
}

// Remove "c" and "d" fields from original object:
const {c, d, ...partialObject} = object;
const subset = {c, d};

console.log(partialObject) // => { a: 'a', b: 'b'}
console.log(subset) // => { c: 'c', d: 'd'};

Answer 5

While it's a bit more verbose, you can accomplish what everyone else was recommending underscore/lodash for 2 years ago, by using Array.prototype.reduce.

var subset = ['color', 'height'].reduce(function(o, k) { o[k] = elmo[k]; return o; }, {});

This approach solves it from the other side: rather than take an object and pass property names to it to extract, take an array of property names and reduce them into a new object.

While it's more verbose in the simplest case, a callback here is pretty handy, since you can easily meet some common requirements, e.g. change the 'color' property to 'colour' on the new object, flatten arrays, etc. -- any of the things you need to do when receiving an object from one service/library and building a new object needed somewhere else. While underscore/lodash are excellent, well-implemented libs, this is my preferred approach for less vendor-reliance, and a simpler, more consistent approach when my subset-building logic gets more complex.

edit: es7 version of the same:

const subset = ['color', 'height'].reduce((a, e) => (a[e] = elmo[e], a), {});

edit: A nice example for currying, too! Have a 'pick' function return another function.

const pick = (...props) => o => props.reduce((a, e) => ({ ...a, [e]: o[e] }), {});

The above is pretty close to the other method, except it lets you build a 'picker' on the fly. e.g.

pick('color', 'height')(elmo);

What's especially neat about this approach, is you can easily pass in the chosen 'picks' into anything that takes a function, e.g. Array#map:

[elmo, grover, bigBird].map(pick('color', 'height'));
// [
//   { color: 'red', height: 'short' },
//   { color: 'blue', height: 'medium' },
//   { color: 'yellow', height: 'tall' },
// ]

Answer 6

I am adding this answer because none of the answers used Comma operator.

It's very easy with destructuring assignment and the , operator:

const object = { a: 5, b: 6, c: 7  };
const picked = ({a,c} = object, {a,c})

console.log(picked);

Answer 7

One more solution:

var subset = {
   color: elmo.color,
   height: elmo.height 
}

This looks far more readable to me than pretty much any answer so far, but maybe that's just me!

Answer 8

There is nothing like that built-in to the core library, but you can use object destructuring to do it...

const {color, height} = sourceObject;
const newObject = {color, height};

You could also write a utility function do it...

const cloneAndPluck = function(sourceObject, keys) {
    const newObject = {};
    keys.forEach(key => { newObject[key] = sourceObject[key]; });
    return newObject;
};

const subset = cloneAndPluck(elmo, ["color", "height"]);

Libraries such as Lodash also have _.pick().

Answer 9

TypeScript solution:

function pick<T extends object, U extends keyof T>(
  obj: T,
  paths: Array<U>
): Pick<T, U> {
  const ret = Object.create(null);
  for (const k of paths) {
    ret[k] = obj[k];
  }
  return ret;
}

The typing information even allows for auto-completion:

Credit to DefinitelyTyped for U extends keyof T trick!

TypeScript Playground

Answer 10

I want to mention that very good curation here:

pick-es2019.js

Object.fromEntries(
  Object.entries(obj)
  .filter(([key]) => ['whitelisted', 'keys'].includes(key))
);

pick-es2017.js

Object.entries(obj)
.filter(([key]) => ['whitelisted', 'keys'].includes(key))
.reduce((obj, [key, val]) => Object.assign(obj, { [key]: val }), {});

pick-es2015.js

Object.keys(obj)
.filter((key) => ['whitelisted', 'keys'].indexOf(key) >= 0)
.reduce((newObj, key) => Object.assign(newObj, { [key]: obj[key] }), {})

omit-es2019.js

Object.fromEntries(
  Object.entries(obj)
  .filter(([key]) => !['blacklisted', 'keys'].includes(key))
);

omit-es2017.js

Object.entries(obj)
.filter(([key]) => !['blacklisted', 'keys'].includes(key))
.reduce((obj, [key, val]) => Object.assign(obj, { [key]: val }), {});

omit-es2015.js

Object.keys(obj)
.filter((key) => ['blacklisted', 'keys'].indexOf(key) < 0)
.reduce((newObj, key) => Object.assign(newObj, { [key]: obj[key] }), {})

Answer 11

You can use Lodash also.

var subset = _.pick(elmo ,'color', 'height');

Complementing, let's say you have an array of "elmo"s :

elmos = [{ 
      color: 'red',
      annoying: true,
      height: 'unknown',
      meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
    },{ 
      color: 'blue',
      annoying: true,
      height: 'known',
      meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
    },{ 
      color: 'yellow',
      annoying: false,
      height: 'unknown',
      meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
    }
];

If you want the same behavior, using lodash, you would just:

var subsets = _.map(elmos, function(elm) { return _.pick(elm, 'color', 'height'); });

Answer 12

Destructuring into dynamically named variables is impossible in JavaScript as discussed in this question.

To set keys dynamically, you can use reduce function without mutating object as follows:

const getSubset = (obj, ...keys) => keys.reduce((a, c) => ({ ...a, [c]: obj[c] }), {});

const elmo = { 
  color: 'red',
  annoying: true,
  height: 'unknown',
  meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
}

const subset = getSubset(elmo, 'color', 'annoying')
console.log(subset)

Should note that you're creating a new object on every iteration though instead of updating a single clone. – mpen

below is a version using reduce with single clone (updating initial value passed in to reduce).

const getSubset = (obj, ...keys) => keys.reduce((acc, curr) => {
  acc[curr] = obj[curr]
  return acc
}, {})

const elmo = { 
  color: 'red',
  annoying: true,
  height: 'unknown',
  meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
}

const subset = getSubset(elmo, 'annoying', 'height', 'meta')
console.log(subset)

Answer 13

Dynamic solution

['color', 'height'].reduce((a,b) => (a[b]=elmo[b],a), {})

let subset= (obj,keys)=> keys.reduce((a,b)=> (a[b]=obj[b],a),{});


// TEST

let elmo = { 
  color: 'red',
  annoying: true,
  height: 'unknown',
  meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
};

console.log( subset(elmo, ['color', 'height']) );

Answer 14

The easiest way I found, which doesn't create unnecessary variables, is a function you can call and works identically to lodash is the following:

pick(obj, keys){
    return  Object.assign({}, ...keys.map(key => ({ [key]: obj[key] })))
}

For example:

pick(obj, keys){
    return  Object.assign({}, ...keys.map(key => ({ [key]: obj[key] })))
}
const obj = {a:1, b:2, c:3, d:4}
const keys = ['a', 'c', 'f']
const picked = pick(obj,keys)
console.log(picked)

pick = (obj, keys) => {
  return Object.assign({}, ...keys.map(key => ({
    [key]: obj[key]
  })))
}

const obj = {
  a: 1,
  b: 2,
  c: 3,
  d: 4
}
const keys = ['a', 'c', 'f']

const picked = pick(obj, keys)
console.log(picked)

Answer 15

Using the "with" statement with shorthand object literal syntax

Nobody has demonstrated this method yet, probably because it's terrible and you shouldn't do it, but I feel like it has to be listed.

var o = {a:1,b:2,c:3,d:4,e:4,f:5}
with(o){
  var output =  {a,b,f}
}
console.log(output)

Pro: You don't have to type the property names twice.

Cons: The "with" statement is not recommended for many reasons.

Conclusion: It works great, but don't use it.

Answer 16

If you want to keep more properties than the ones you want to remove, you could use the rest parameter syntax:

const obj = {
  a:1,
  b:2,
  c:3,
  d:4
};
const { a, ...newObj } = obj;
console.log(newObj); // {b: 2, c: 3, d: 4}

Answer 17

This works for me in Chrome console. Any problem with this?

var { color, height } = elmo
var subelmo = { color, height }
console.log(subelmo) // {color: "red", height: "unknown"}

Answer 18

Like several on this thread I agree with evert that the most obvious old school way of doing this is actually the best available, however for fun let me provide one other inadvisable way of doing it in certain circumstances, say when you already have your subset defined and you want to copy properties to it from another object that contains a superset or intersecting set of its properties.

let set = { a : 1, b : 2, c : 3 };
let subset = { a : null, b : null };
try {
  Object.assign(Object.seal(subset), set);
} catch (e) {
  console.log('its ok I meant to do that <(^.^)^');
}
console.log(subset);

Answer 19

To add another esoteric way, this works aswell:

var obj = {a: 1, b:2, c:3}
var newobj = ({a,c}=obj) && {a,c}
// {a: 1, c:3}

but you have to write the prop names twice.

Answer 20

How about:

function sliceObj(obj) {
  var o = {}
    , keys = [].slice.call(arguments, 1);
  for (var i=0; i<keys.length; i++) {
    if (keys[i] in obj) o[keys[i]] = obj[keys[i]];
  }
  return o;
}

var subset = sliceObj(elmo, 'color', 'height');

Answer 21

1. convert arguments to array

2. use Array.forEach() to pick the property

   Object.prototype.pick = function(...args) {
      var obj = {};
      args.forEach(k => obj[k] = this[k])
      return obj
   }
   var a = {0:"a",1:"b",2:"c"}
   var b = a.pick('1','2')  //output will be {1: "b", 2: "c"}
   

Answer 22

I've got the same problem and solved it easily by using the following libs:

object.pick

https://www.npmjs.com/package/object.pick

pick({a: 'a', b: 'b', c: 'c'}, ['a', 'b'])
//=> {a: 'a', b: 'b'}

object.omit

https://www.npmjs.com/package/object.omit

omit({a: 'a', b: 'b', c: 'c'}, ['a', 'c'])
//=> { b: 'b' }

Answer 23

If you're looking to extract specific properties from an object into variables and simultaneously create a subset of that object you can use the following:

const theObject = { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3, d: 4, e: 5 };
const subset = { ...({ a, c, e} = new Proxy({}, { get: (t, p) => (t[p] = theObject[p], t[p]) })) }
console.log(a)      // 1
console.log(subset) // {a: 1, c: 3, e: 5}

This works because the get() trap of the proxy will record only the properties accessed in the destructuring { a, c, e} = proxy so { ...proxy } will contain only that subset of theObject

fiddle

Answer 24

Many answers I saw don't work with array of strings or they are way too much verbose.

I propose this solution that is a potential alternative to the lodash pick method but it's just one line long.

First thing define a pick list:

const pickList = ['color', 'height']

Then use:

pickList.reduce((acc, cur) => ({...acc, [cur]: elmo[cur]}), {})

Answer 25

Good-old Array.prototype.reduce:

const selectable = {a: null, b: null};
const v = {a: true, b: 'yes', c: 4};

const r = Object.keys(selectable).reduce((a, b) => {
  return (a[b] = v[b]), a;
}, {});

console.log(r);

this answer uses the magical comma-operator, also: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Operators/Comma_Operator

if you want to get really fancy, this is more compact:

const r = Object.keys(selectable).reduce((a, b) => (a[b] = v[b], a), {});

Putting it all together into a reusable function:

const getSelectable = function (selectable, original) {
  return Object.keys(selectable).reduce((a, b) => (a[b] = original[b], a), {})
};

const r = getSelectable(selectable, v);
console.log(r);

Answer 26

Worth noting a Zod schema will strip out unknown properties by default. If you're already using Zod, this likely fits right into your development process.

https://github.com/colinhacks/zod

import { z } from "zod";

// muppet schema
const muppet = z.object({
  color: z.string(),
  annoying: z.boolean(),
  height: z.string(),
  meta: z.object({ one: z.string(), two: z.string() }),
});

// TypeScript type if you want it
type TMuppet = z.infer<typeof muppet>;

// elmo example
const elmo: TMuppet = {
  color: "red",
  annoying: true,
  height: "unknown",
  meta: { one: "1", two: "2" },
};

// get a subset of the schema (another schema) if you want
const subset = muppet.pick({ color: true, height: true });

// parsing removes unknown properties by default
subset.parse(elmo); // { color: 'red', height: 'unknown' }

Answer 27

Adding my 2 cents to Ivan Nosov answer:

In my case I needed many keys to be 'sliced' out of the object so it's becoming ugly very fast and not a very dynamic solution:

const object = { a: 5, b: 6, c: 7, d: 8, aa: 5, bb: 6, cc: 7, dd: 8, aaa: 5, bbb: 6, ccc: 7, ddd: 8, ab: 5, bc: 6, cd: 7, de: 8  };
const picked = (({ a, aa, aaa, ab, c, cc, ccc, cd }) => ({ a, aa, aaa, ab, c, cc, ccc, cd }))(object);

console.log(picked);

So here is a dynamic solution using eval:

const slice = (k, o) => eval(`(${k} => ${k})(o)`);


const object    = { a: 5, b: 6, c: 7, d: 8, aa: 5, bb: 6, cc: 7, dd: 8, aaa: 5, bbb: 6, ccc: 7, ddd: 8, ab: 5, bc: 6, cd: 7, de: 8  };
const sliceKeys = '({ a, aa, aaa, ab, c, cc, ccc, cd })';

console.log( slice(sliceKeys, object) );

Answer 28

Destructuring assignment with dynamic properties

This solution not only applies to your specific example but is more generally applicable:

const subset2 = (x, y) => ({[x]:a, [y]:b}) => ({[x]:a, [y]:b});

const subset3 = (x, y, z) => ({[x]:a, [y]:b, [z]:c}) => ({[x]:a, [y]:b, [z]:c});

// const subset4...etc.


const o = {a:1, b:2, c:3, d:4, e:5};


const pickBD = subset2("b", "d");
const pickACE = subset3("a", "c", "e");


console.log(
  pickBD(o), // {b:2, d:4}
  pickACE(o) // {a:1, c:3, e:5}
);

You can easily define subset4 etc. to take more properties into account.

Answer 29

Note: though the original question asked was for javascript, it can be done jQuery by below solution

you can extend jquery if you want here is the sample code for one slice:

jQuery.extend({
  sliceMe: function(obj, str) {
      var returnJsonObj = null;
    $.each( obj, function(name, value){
        alert("name: "+name+", value: "+value);
        if(name==str){
            returnJsonObj = JSON.stringify("{"+name+":"+value+"}");
        }

    });
      return returnJsonObj;
  }
});

var elmo = { 
  color: 'red',
  annoying: true,
  height: 'unknown',
  meta: { one: '1', two: '2'}
};


var temp = $.sliceMe(elmo,"color");
alert(JSON.stringify(temp));

here is the fiddle for same: http://jsfiddle.net/w633z/