I have this object
var person1{
name : "John",
lastName : "Doe"
}
And I did an assignment like this
person2 = person1;
But If I do this:
person1.name = "Mike";
Then person2.name is "Mike"
What I'm trying is to make person2 "independent".
What is going on? is like "referencing objects" ?
You're exactly right. It is a referencing situation. There is no cloning going on when you assign an object to a variable, the program just creates a new reference to person1 called person2
You would have to use a dedicated cloning function, depending on if you are using pure JS or a framework like jQuery.
Here is a pure JS solution (source http://heyjavascript.com/4-creative-ways-to-clone-objects/):
function cloneObject(obj) {
if (obj === null || typeof obj !== 'object') {
return obj;
}
var temp = obj.constructor(); // give temp the original obj's constructor
for (var key in obj) {
temp[key] = cloneObject(obj[key]);
}
return temp;
}
var person2 = cloneObject(person1);
In that situation I do this:
// a function that returns a generic object
function newPerson(){
return {name:"",lastName:""};
}
//then, calling the function we get an independent object
var person1=newPerson();
var person2=newPerson();
person1.name="Jon";
person2.name="Bob";
You can do this
var p2 ={
name : person1.name,
lastname : person1.lastName
}
this way, it won't be referenced because you're passing simple types, not objects
