What's the difference between isPrototypeOf and instanceof in Javascript?

Question

In some of my own older code, I use the following:

Object.prototype.instanceOf = function( iface )
{
 return iface.prototype.isPrototypeOf( this );
};
         


        

Answer 1

Operator precedence and truthiness differ since one is an expression and the other is a method call. One thing to emphasize is that both traverse the prototype chain, so you cannot assume that there is a one-to-one mapping between a matching prototype and the object in question:

var i = 0;

function foo()
{
console.log("foo");
console.log(i++ + ": " + Object.prototype.isPrototypeOf(Object) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + Function.prototype.isPrototypeOf(Function) ) //true

console.log(i++ + ": " + Function.prototype.isPrototypeOf(Function) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + Function.prototype.isPrototypeOf(Object) ) //true

console.log(i++ + ": " + RegExp.prototype.isPrototypeOf( RegExp(/foo/) ) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + Object.prototype.isPrototypeOf( RegExp(/foo/) ) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + Function.prototype.isPrototypeOf( RegExp(/foo/) ) ) //false
console.log(i++ + ": " + Object.prototype.isPrototypeOf(Math) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + Math.isPrototypeOf(Math) ) //false
}

function bar()
{
console.log("bar");
console.log(i++ + ": " + (Object instanceof Object) ) //true

console.log(i++ + ": " + (Function instanceof Function) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + (Function instanceof Object) ) //true

console.log(i++ + ": " + (RegExp(/foo/) instanceof RegExp) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + (RegExp(/foo/) instanceof Object)  ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + (RegExp(/foo/) instanceof Function) ) //false
console.log(i++ + ": " + (Math instanceof Object) ) //true
console.log(i++ + ": " + (Math instanceof Math) ) //error
}
try
  {
  foo()
  }
catch(e)
  {
  console.log(JSON.stringify(e));
  }
finally
  {
  try
    {
    bar();
    }
  catch(e)
    {
    console.log(JSON.stringify(e));
    }
  }

References

• Classes in ECMAScript 6 (final semantics)