How does instanceof work in JavaScript?

Question

In the following code sample both checks of obj2 and obj3 at the end with instanceof return true even if the ways there were constructed are different and the results of returning name property are different.

var Obj1 = function() {
    this.name = "foo1";
};
Obj1.prototype.name = "foo1onProt";
var obj1 = new Obj1();

var Obj2 = function() {};
Obj2.prototype = new Obj1();
Obj2.prototype.constructor = Obj2;
var obj2 = new Obj2();

var Obj3 = function() {};
Obj3.prototype = Object.create(Obj1.prototype);
Obj3.prototype.constructor = Obj3;
var obj3 = new Obj3();

console.dir(obj1);
console.log("obj1.name: " + obj1.name);

console.dir(obj2);
console.log("obj2.name: " + obj2.name);

console.dir(obj3);
console.log("obj3.name: " + obj3.name);

console.log("obj2 instanceof Obj1: " + (obj2 instanceof Obj1));
console.log("obj3 instanceof Obj1: " + (obj3 instanceof Obj1));

Result of the run in Chrome:

Obj1
  name: "foo1"
  __proto__: Object
    constructor: function () {
    name: "foo1onProt"
    __proto__: Object
obj1.name: foo1
Obj2
  __proto__: Obj1
    constructor: function () {}
    name: "foo1"
    __proto__: Object
      constructor: function () {
      name: "foo1onProt"
      __proto__: Object
obj2.name: foo1
Obj3
   __proto__: Object
   constructor: function () {}
   __proto__: Object
     constructor: function () {
     name: "foo1onProt"
     __proto__: Object
obj3.name: foo1onProt

obj2 instanceof Obj1: true
obj3 instanceof Obj1: true

What is the best way to recognize that obj2 and obj3 are different? How does actually instanceof work?

Answer 1

Most simply: obj instanceof constructor yields true when obj has constructor's prototype in it's constructor/prototype chain. In other words, your asking your engine whether obj can be treated like an instance of constructor / whether obj behaves like a constructor object.

There is a small handful of syntaxes that allow you to put constructor's prototype in obj's prototype chain. Any and all of them will cause obj instanceof constructor to be true. In your examples, both obj2 and obj3 have Obj1 in their prototype chain.

So, when you ask your javascript engine whether either obj2 or obj3 behave like an instance of Obj1, JavaScript assumes true -- the only case wherein they wouldn't is if you've overridden Obj1's behavior down the line.