Elements order in a “for (… in …)” loop

Question

Does the \"for…in\" loop in Javascript loop through the hashtables/elements in the order they are declared? Is there a browser which doesn\'t do it in order?
The object

Answer 1

This does not answer the question per se, but offers a solution to the basic problem.

Assuming that you cannot rely on order to preserved, why not use an array of objects with key and value as properties?

var myArray = [
    {
        'key'   : 'key1'
        'value' : 0
    },
    {
        'key'   : 'key2',
        'value' : 1
    } // ...
];

Now, it is up to you to ensure that the keys are unique (assuming that this is also important to you. As well, direct addressing changes, and for (...in...) now returns indexes as 'keys'.

> console.log(myArray[0].key);
key1

> for (let index in myArray) {console.log(myArray[index].value);}
0
1

See the Pen for (...in...) addressing in order by JDQ (@JDQ) on CodePen.

Answer 2

As stated by other answers, no, the order is not guaranteed.

If you want to iterate in order, you can do something like:

let keys = Object.keys(myObject);
for (let key of keys.sort()) {
  let value = myObject[key];
  
  // Do what you want with key and value 
}

Note that performance-wise, this is not optimal, but that's the price when you want a nice alphabetical display.

Answer 3

The order cannot be trusted. Both Opera and Chrome return the list of properties unordered.

<script type="text/javascript">
var username = {"14719":"A","648":"B","15185":"C"};

for (var i in username) {
  window.alert(i + ' => ' + username[i]);
}
</script>

The code above shows B, A, C in Opera and C, A, B in Chrome.

Answer 4

Bumping this a year later...

It is 2012 and the major browsers still differ:

function lineate(obj){
    var arr = [], i;
    for (i in obj) arr.push([i,obj[i]].join(':'));
    console.log(arr);
}
var obj = { a:1, b:2, c:3, "123":'xyz' };
/* log1 */  lineate(obj);
obj.a = 4;
/* log2 */  lineate(obj);
delete obj.a;
obj.a = 4;
/* log3 */  lineate(obj);

gist or test in current browser

Safari 5, Firefox 14

["a:1", "b:2", "c:3", "123:xyz"]
["a:4", "b:2", "c:3", "123:xyz"]
["b:2", "c:3", "123:xyz", "a:4"]

Chrome 21, Opera 12, Node 0.6, Firefox 27

["123:xyz", "a:1", "b:2", "c:3"]
["123:xyz", "a:4", "b:2", "c:3"]
["123:xyz", "b:2", "c:3", "a:4"]

IE9

[123:xyz,a:1,b:2,c:3] 
[123:xyz,a:4,b:2,c:3] 
[123:xyz,a:4,b:2,c:3] 

Answer 5

in IE6, the order is not guaranteed.

Answer 6

From the ECMAScript Language Specification, section 12.6.4 (on the for .. in loop):

The mechanics of enumerating the properties is implementation dependent. The order of enumeration is defined by the object.

And section 4.3.3 (definition of "Object"):

It is an unordered collection of properties each of which contains a primitive value, object, or function. A function stored in a property of an object is called a method.

I guess that means you cant rely on the properties being enumerated in a consistent order across JavaScript implementations. (It would be bad style anyway to rely on implementation-specific details of a language.)

If you want your order defined, you will need to implement something that defines it, like an array of keys that you sort before accessing the object with it.