Simple question, What is the best practise, should I declare JavaScript objects, that will not be initialized until some later stage, with <code>null</code> or <code>{}</code>?

I think it really depends. If you just want to declare it early because you know it is "hoisted" to the beginning of the function anyway, and will initialize a few lines down below, then just use <pre class="prettyprint"><code>var foo; </code></pre> which makes <code>foo</code> <code>undefined</code>. Otherwise, if you need to do anything with <code>foo</code> being an object before your initialization, then it will be better to use <pre class="prettyprint"><code>var foo = {}; </code></pre>

Declaring an object in JavaScript for later use - null or {}?

1 Answers

I think it really depends. If you just want to declare it early because you know it is "hoisted" to the beginning of the function anyway, and will initialize a few lines down below, then just use

var foo;

which makes foo undefined. Otherwise, if you need to do anything with foo being an object before your initialization, then it will be better to use