Defining "path" to object key with a string [duplicate]

Question

Is it possible to define a "path" to an object key?

For instance if you have an object:

var obj = {
    hello: {
        you: "you"
    }
}

I would like to select it like this:

var path = "hello.you";
obj[path]; //Should return "you"

(Doesn't work obviously, but is there a way?)

Answer 1

Quick code, you probably should make it error proof ;-)

var obj = {
    hello: {
        you: "you"
    }
};

Object.prototype.getByPath = function (key) {
  var keys = key.split('.'),
      obj = this;

  for (var i = 0; i < keys.length; i++) {
      obj = obj[keys[i]];
  }

  return obj;
};

console.log(obj.getByPath('hello.you'));

And here you can test -> http://jsbin.com/ehayav/2/

mz

Answer 2

You can try this:

var path = "hello.you";
eval("obj."+path);