How to copy JavaScript object to new variable NOT by reference? [duplicate]

Question

I've found that the following works if you're not using jQuery and only interested in cloning simple objects (see comments).

JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(json_original));

Documentation

• JSON.parse()
• JSON.stringify()

Your only option is to somehow clone the object.

See this stackoverflow question on how you can achieve this.

For simple JSON objects, the simplest way would be:

var newObject = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(oldObject));

if you use jQuery, you can use:

// Shallow copy
var newObject = jQuery.extend({}, oldObject);

// Deep copy
var newObject = jQuery.extend(true, {}, oldObject);

UPDATE 2017: I should mention, since this is a popular answer, that there are now better ways to achieve this using newer versions of javascript:

In ES6 or TypeScript (2.1+):

var shallowCopy = { ...oldObject };

var shallowCopyWithExtraProp = { ...oldObject, extraProp: "abc" };

Note that if extraProp is also a property on oldObject, its value will not be used because the extraProp : "abc" is specified later in the expression, which essentially overrides it. Of course, oldObject will not be modified.