Aliases with JavaScript Destructuring

By  on  

Destructuring in JavaScript has totally changed the way JavaScript is written these days;  code is more concise to write but but, from a visual standpoint, the syntax of the language has changed so much.  Any good developer knows, however, that change is the constant we live in.

The basic idea behind destructuring in object literals is as follows:

const obj = { x: 1 };

// Grabs obj.x as { x }
const { x } = obj;

There are cases where you want the destructured variable to have a different name than the property name; in that case, you'll use a : newName to specify a name for the variable:

// Grabs obj.x as as { otherName }
const { x: otherName } = obj;

The syntax for specifying an alternate destructured name for an object property is simple and needed.  Destructuring had the capability to confuse developers, especially array destructuring and function argument destructuring, but this alias syntax is a simple trick to keep in your locker!

Recent Features

  • By
    39 Shirts – Leaving Mozilla

    In 2001 I had just graduated from a small town high school and headed off to a small town college. I found myself in the quaint computer lab where the substandard computers featured two browsers: Internet Explorer and Mozilla. It was this lab where I fell...

  • By
    CSS 3D Folding Animation

    Google Plus provides loads of inspiration for front-end developers, especially when it comes to the CSS and JavaScript wonders they create. Last year I duplicated their incredible PhotoStack effect with both MooTools and pure CSS; this time I'm going to duplicate...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Spatial Navigation

    Spatial navigation is the ability to navigate to focusable elements based on their position in a given space.  Spatial navigation is a must when your site or app must respond to arrow keys, a perfect example being a television with directional pad remote.  Firefox OS TV apps are simply...

  • By
    New MooTools Plugin:  ElementFilter

    My new MooTools plugin, ElementFilter, provides a great way for you to allow users to search through the text of any mix of elements. Simply provide a text input box and ElementFilter does the rest of the work. The XHTML I've used a list for this example...

Discussion

  1. Always have to check your site first to see any updates. Love it david. That’s where good developers stand out. Always adapting to new changes. Just trying to get hang of destructing as i’m not the smartest one in the room.

  2. undefined alias

    Hello. I’m using an alias for my destructed object property. How can I handle the property when it’s undefined?
    Thanks.

  3. Jan

    I was looking for something like this. I wonder why the proposal for this feature didn’t follow the syntax of import statements.

    Example:

    const { x as otherName } = obj;
    
    • Memo

      this is the typescript syntax

  4. mark

    I don’t know why people call it an “alias”. If it were an alias, changing the variable would change the object property. E.g.

    let obj = { x: 1 }        
    let { x: x_notalias } = obj 
    x_notalias = 2                  // 2
    obj                             // { x: 1 }
    

    I think the only time you can have an alias in JavaScript is with reference types.

    let obj = { x: 1 }
    let obj_alias = obj
    obj_alias.x = 2
    obj                        // { x: 2 }
    
  5. Maksym Kulikovskiy

    When destructuring we use the word “alias” to refer to a differently named variable with the same value, rather than a different name that should reference the same variable.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!