[PATCH] Object.hasProperties(), Object.isEmpty()

I use $H(object).any(), but your solution is faster because it doesn't have to construct a new Hash.

About naming: why not Object.empty/isEmpty?

+1 for isEmpty

The reason I suggested hasProperties() instead of isEmpty() is that emptiness is different to different people. Many would expect isEmpty() to return true for empty arrays and empty strings.

I come from the PHP world where empty() is all kinds of madness: http://php.net/empty

We come from different worlds. Don't forget we aren't following PHP conventions, but of a language that's completely different.

isEmpty seems to reflect most common use case - testing an object for emptiness and just feels more semantic in this context.

Personally, I rarely need to check if an object contains some hypothetical properties - I am solely interested if it is empty or not.

Ruby seems to go the empty? way as well (though I might be missing something)

Since JavaScript doesn't support question marks in the method name, I think we (the Core team) agreed one day to prefer "isSomething" convention over just "something".

Object.isEmpty() is the way to go here.

Replying to mislav:

Since JavaScript doesn't support question marks in the method name, I think we (the Core team) agreed one day to prefer "isSomething" convention over just "something". Object.isEmpty() is the way to go here.

That's exactly why I like isEmpty() :)

hasProperties function converted to isEmpty

imho, this should go hand in hand with an aliasing of all the empty methods to isEmpty and with a check for that method in Object.isEmpty like so:

isEmpty: function(object) {
  if (object && object.isEmpty) return object.isEmpty();
  for (var property in object) return false; 
  return true;
}

because

Object.isEmpty([])
// -> false

is *really* counter-intuitive.

Thoughts ?

I completely agree. That is why I proposed calling it hasProperties(). It is simple to tell if other types of objects are empty using length or any(). But the quickest way to detect if an object is empty is $H({}).any() which can be slower than hasProperties().

Replying to Tobie:

imho, this should go hand in hand with an aliasing of all the empty methods to isEmpty and with a check for that method in Object.isEmpty like so: {{{ isEmpty: function(object) { if (object && object.isEmpty) return object.isEmpty(); for (var property in object) return false; return true; } }}} because {{{ Object.isEmpty([]) // -> false }}} is *really* counter-intuitive. Thoughts ?

Tobie, it's counter-intuitive because the implementation is somewhat naive : )

// all of these return false

isEmpty([]);
isEmpty(/regexp/);
isEmpty('string');
isEmpty(5);
isEmpty(Infinity);
isEmpty(NaN);
isEmpty(document.createElement)

I think we could do a little better:

function isEmpty(o) {
  if (typeof o == 'object') {
    for (var p in o)
      if (o[p] !== undefined && typeof o[p] != 'function')
        return false;
  }
  return true;
};

Forgot to mention that the proposed function returns true when passed any of those "objects"