Javascript: Get object name as string

Question

Say I have this code...

var personA = {
    name: "john"
}

var personB = {
    name: "john"
}

function doSomething(o) {
    alert("Var is: " + o.toString()); // I need to convert 'o' to the object name
}

doSomething(personA);
doSomething(personB);

I want the alert output to be...

Var is: personA
Var is: personB

But I can't figure out how to get the name as string of the object?

You really want `personA`/`personB` in the output?? The names of the **variables**? Something tells me this is an X/Y problem -- you've asked about Y because you think you need Y to solve problem X, but it's likely that there's a better way to solve problem X than the above. — T.J. Crowder, Mar 24 '15 at 12:53
http://stackoverflow.com/a/22548989/4028085 You can do it like this if you make your "variables" properties of an object... — brso05, Mar 24 '15 at 12:54
Why? What are you trying to solve by getting the variable names? Sounds like an [XY problem](http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/66377/what-is-the-xy-problem) — thefourtheye, Mar 24 '15 at 12:54
@MojoDK check out my answer I'm not sure if it is what you are looking for but it is an alternative to your problem. — brso05, Mar 24 '15 at 13:00

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Mar 24 '15 at 12:54

2

This is impossible. There is no connection back to the variable.

When you doSomething(personA); you get the value of the variable personA and pass that value to the function.

function doSomething(o) {

The value is copied into o. There is no path back to personA from there.

answered Mar 24 '15 at 12:54

Quentin

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Although in this particular case, if you had access to the variables, and only one variable referred to each object, you could figure it out... But this is clearly an X/Y situation. – T.J. Crowder Mar 24 '15 at 12:56

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Mar 24 '15 at 12:54

0

Basically no you can't

A hacky way of doing it would be do have

var personA = {
    name: "John",
    variable: "personA"
}

and then just use o.variable

answered Mar 24 '15 at 12:54

MarshallOfSound

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score 0 · Answer 3 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

0

var people = {
    personA: {name: "john"},
    personB: {name: "billy"}
};

for(var variable in people)
{
    alert(variable);
}

Code comes from here

edited May 23 '17 at 12:28

Community

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answered Mar 24 '15 at 12:57

brso05

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nullpotent · Answer 4 · 2015-04-07T08:37:41.130

0

You could do something along the lines of

var global = {};
Object.observe(global, function(obj) {
 console.log(obj[0].name);
});
global.personA = { name: "John" };

with EC7 observe

edited Apr 07 '15 at 08:37

answered Mar 24 '15 at 12:59

nullpotent

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Javascript: Get object name as string

4 Answers4