How to iterate over an object's prototype's properties

Question

I have some code:

var obj = function() { }; // functional object
obj.foo = 'foo';
obj.prototype.bar = 'bar';

for (var prop in obj) {
    console.log(prop);
}

What surprised me is that all that is logged is foo. I expected the for loop to iterate over the properties of the obj's prototype as well (namely bar), because I did not check for hasOwnProperty. What am I missing here? And is there an idiomatic way to iterate over all the properties in the prototype as well?

I tested this in Chrome and IE10.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You're iterating over the constructor's properties, you have to create an instance. The instance is what inherits from the constructor's prototype property:

var Ctor = function() { }; // constructor function
Ctor.prototype.bar = 'bar';
var obj = new Ctor(); // instantiation

// adds own property to instance
obj.foo = 'foo';

// logs foo and bar
for (var prop in obj) {
    console.log(prop); 
}