After an AJAX request, sometimes my application may return an empty object, like:

var a = {};

How can I check whether that's the case?

You can use a for…in loop with an Object.hasOwn (ECMA 2022+) test to check whether an object has any own properties:

function isEmpty(obj) {
  for (const prop in obj) {
    if (Object.hasOwn(obj, prop)) {
      return false;
    }
  }

  return true;
}

If you also need to distinguish {}-like empty objects from other objects with no own properties (e.g. Dates), you can do various (and unfortunately need-specific) type checks:

function isEmptyObject(value) {
  if (value == null) {
    // null or undefined
    return false;
  }

  if (typeof value !== 'object') {
    // boolean, number, string, function, etc.
    return false;
  }

  const proto = Object.getPrototypeOf(value);

  // consider `Object.create(null)`, commonly used as a safe map
  // before `Map` support, an empty object as well as `{}`
  if (proto !== null && proto !== Object.prototype) {
    return false;
  }

  return isEmpty(value);
}

Note that comparing against Object.prototype like in this example will fail to recognize cross-realm objects.

Do not use Object.keys(obj).length. It is O(N) complexity because it creates an array containing all the property names only to get the length of that array. Iterating over the object accomplishes the same goal but is O(1).

For compatibility with JavaScript engines that don’t support ES 2022+, const can be replaced with var and Object.hasOwn with Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call:

function isEmpty(obj) {
  for (var prop in obj) {
    if (Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty.call(obj, prop)) {
      return false;
    }
  }

  return true
}

Many popular libraries also provide functions to check for empty objects:

jQuery:

jQuery.isEmptyObject({}); // true

lodash:

_.isEmpty({}); // true

Underscore:

_.isEmpty({}); // true

Hoek:

Hoek.deepEqual({}, {}); // true

ExtJS:

Ext.Object.isEmpty({}); // true

AngularJS (version 1):

angular.equals({}, {}); // true

Ramda:

R.isEmpty({}); // true

If ECMAScript 5 support is available, you can use Object.keys():

function isEmpty(obj) {
    return Object.keys(obj).length === 0;
}

For ES3 and older, there's no easy way to do this. You'll have to loop over the properties explicitly:

function isEmpty(obj) {
    for(var prop in obj) {
        if(obj.hasOwnProperty(prop))
            return false;
    }

    return true;
}

For those of you who have the same problem but use jQuery, you can use jQuery.isEmptyObject.

Performance

Today 2023.3.20 I perform tests for chosen solutions on MacOs Monterey 12.1 (M1, 16GB) on Chrome v109, Safari v15.2 and Firefox v110.

Conclusions

• Solutions based on for-in (A, L) are fast or fastest on all browsers
• Solution based on JSON.stringify (B) is slowest on all browsers

Details

There solutions are presented in the snippet below. If you want to run a performance test on your machine, click

• HERE for empty object
• HERE for object witch 10 fields
• HERE for object with 100 fields

Old version of this answer contains tests from 2020 - HERE.

Links to answers: A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O P Q

var log = (s, f) => console.log(`${s} --> {}:${f({})}  {k:2}:${f({ k: 2 })}`);

function A(obj) {
  for (var i in obj) return false;
  return true;
}

function B(obj) {
  return JSON.stringify(obj) === "{}";
}

function C(obj) {
  return Object.keys(obj).length === 0;
}

function D(obj) {
  return Object.entries(obj).length === 0;
}

function E(obj) {
  return Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length === 0;
}

function F(obj) {
  return Object.keys(obj).length === 0 && obj.constructor === Object;
}

function G(obj) {
  return typeof obj === "undefined" || !Object.keys(obj)[0];
}

function H(obj) {
  return Object.entries(obj).length === 0 && obj.constructor === Object;
}

function I(obj) {
  return Object.values(obj).every((val) => typeof val === "undefined");
}

function J(obj) {
  for (const key in obj) {
    if (hasOwnProperty.call(obj, key)) {
      return false;
    }
  }
  return true;
}

function K(obj) {
  var isEmpty = true;
  for (keys in obj) {
     isEmpty = false;
     break;
  }
  return isEmpty;
}

function L(obj) {
  for (var prop in obj) {
    if (obj.hasOwnProperty(prop)) return false;
  }
  return true;
}

function M(obj) {
  if (obj === null || typeof obj !== 'object' ||
    Object.prototype.toString.call(obj) === '[object Array]') {
    return false
  } else {
    for (var prop in obj) {
      if (obj.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
        return false
      }
    }
    return JSON.stringify(obj) === JSON.stringify({})
  }
}

function N(obj) {
  return (
    Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length === 0 &&
    Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(obj).length === 0 &&
    Object.getPrototypeOf(obj) === Object.prototype
  );
}

function O(obj) {
  return !(Object.getOwnPropertyNames !== undefined
    ? Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length !== 0
    : (function () {
        for (var key in obj) break;
        return key !== null && key !== undefined;
      })());
}

function P(obj) {
  return $.isEmptyObject(obj)
}

function Q(obj) {
  return _.isEmpty(obj);
}

log("A", A);
log("B", B);
log("C", C);
log("D", D);
log("E", E);
log("F", F);
log("G", G);
log("H", H);
log("I", I);
log("J", J);
log("K", K);
log("L", L);
log("M", M);
log("N", N);
log("O", O);
log("P", P);
log("Q", Q);

<script
  src="https://code.jquery.com/jquery-3.6.4.min.js"
  integrity="sha256-oP6HI9z1XaZNBrJURtCoUT5SUnxFr8s3BzRl+cbzUq8="
  crossorigin="anonymous"></script>

<script src="https://cdnjs.cloudflare.com/ajax/libs/underscore.js/1.13.6/underscore-min.js" integrity="sha512-2V49R8ndaagCOnwmj8QnbT1Gz/rie17UouD9Re5WxbzRVUGoftCu5IuqqtAM9+UC3fwfHCSJR1hkzNQh/2wdtg==" crossorigin="anonymous" referrerpolicy="no-referrer"></script>

You can use Underscore.js.

_.isEmpty({}); // true

if(Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length === 0){
  //is empty
}

see http://bencollier.net/2011/04/javascript-is-an-object-empty/

How about using JSON.stringify? It is almost available in all modern browsers.

function isEmptyObject(obj){
    return JSON.stringify(obj) === '{}';
}

There is a simple way if you are on a newer browser. Object.keys(obj).length === 0

Old question, but just had the issue. Including JQuery is not really a good idea if your only purpose is to check if the object is not empty. Instead, just deep into JQuery's code, and you will get the answer:

function isEmptyObject(obj) {
    var name;
    for (name in obj) {
        if (obj.hasOwnProperty(name)) {
            return false;
        }
    }
    return true;
}

Using Object.keys(obj).length (as suggested above for ECMA 5+) is 10 times slower for empty objects! keep with the old school (for...in) option.

Tested under Node, Chrome, Firefox and IE 9, it becomes evident that for most use cases:

• (for...in...) is the fastest option to use!
• Object.keys(obj).length is 10 times slower for empty objects
• JSON.stringify(obj).length is always the slowest (not suprising)
• Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length takes longer than Object.keys(obj).length can be much longer on some systems.

Bottom line performance wise, use:

function isEmpty(obj) { 
   for (var x in obj) { return false; }
   return true;
}

or

function isEmpty(obj) {
   for (var x in obj) { if (obj.hasOwnProperty(x))  return false; }
   return true;
}

See detailed testing results and test code at Is object empty?

My take:

function isEmpty(obj) {
  return Object.keys(obj).length === 0;
}

var a = {
  a: 1,
  b: 2
}
var b = {}

console.log(isEmpty(a)); // false
console.log(isEmpty(b)); // true

Just, I don't think all browsers implement Object.keys() currently.

I am using this.

function isObjectEmpty(object) {
  var isEmpty = true;
  for (keys in object) {
     isEmpty = false;
     break; // exiting since we found that the object is not empty
  }
  return isEmpty;
}

Eg:

var myObject = {}; // Object is empty
var isEmpty  = isObjectEmpty(myObject); // will return true;
 
// populating the object
myObject = {"name":"John Smith","Address":"Kochi, Kerala"}; 
 
// check if the object is empty
isEmpty  = isObjectEmpty(myObject); // will return false;

from here

Update

OR

you can use the jQuery implementation of isEmptyObject

function isEmptyObject(obj) {
  var name;
  for (name in obj) {
    return false;
  }
  return true;
}

1. Using Object.keys

Object.keys will return an Array, which contains the property names of the object. If the length of the array is 0, then we know that the object is empty.

function isEmpty(obj) {
    return Object.keys(obj).length === 0 && obj.constructor === Object;
}

We can also check this using Object.values and Object.entries. This is typically the easiest way to determine if an object is empty.

2. Looping over object properties with for…in

The for…in statement will loop through the enumerable property of object.

function isEmpty(obj) {
    for(var prop in obj) {
        if(obj.hasOwnProperty(prop))
            return false;
    }

    return true;
}

In the above code, we will loop through object properties and if an object has at least one property, then it will enter the loop and return false. If the object doesn’t have any properties then it will return true.

#3. Using JSON.stringify If we stringify the object and the result is simply an opening and closing bracket, we know the object is empty.

function isEmptyObject(obj){
    return JSON.stringify(obj) === '{}';
}

4. Using jQuery

jQuery.isEmptyObject(obj); 

5. Using Underscore and Lodash

_.isEmpty(obj);

Resource

1. Just a workaround. Can your server generate some special property in case of no data?

   For example:

   var a = {empty:true};
   

   Then you can easily check it in your AJAX callback code.

2. Another way to check it:

   if (a.toSource() === "({})")  // then 'a' is empty
   

EDIT: If you use any JSON library (f.e. JSON.js) then you may try JSON.encode() function and test the result against empty value string.

function isEmpty(obj) {
  for(var i in obj) { return false; }
  return true;
}

The correct answer is:

function isEmptyObject(obj) {
  return (
    Object.getPrototypeOf(obj) === Object.prototype &&
    Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length === 0 &&
    Object.getOwnPropertySymbols(obj).length === 0
  );
}

This checks that:

• The object's prototype is exactly Object.prototype.
• The object has no own properties (regardless of enumerability).
• The object has no own property symbols.

In other words, the object is indistinguishable from one created with {}.

The following example show how to test if a JavaScript object is empty, if by empty we means has no own properties to it.

The script works on ES6.

const isEmpty = (obj) => {
    if (obj === null ||
        obj === undefined ||
        Array.isArray(obj) ||
        typeof obj !== 'object'
    ) {
        return true;
    }
    return Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length === 0;
};
console.clear();
console.log('-----');
console.log(isEmpty(''));           // true
console.log(isEmpty(33));           // true
console.log(isEmpty([]));           // true
console.log(isEmpty({}));           // true
console.log(isEmpty({ length: 0, custom_property: [] })); // false
console.log('-----');
console.log(isEmpty('Hello'));      // true
console.log(isEmpty([1, 2, 3]));    // true
console.log(isEmpty({ test: 1 }));  // false
console.log(isEmpty({ length: 3, custom_property: [1, 2, 3] })); // false
console.log('-----');
console.log(isEmpty(new Date()));   // true
console.log(isEmpty(Infinity));     // true
console.log(isEmpty(null));         // true
console.log(isEmpty(undefined));    // true

jQuery have special function isEmptyObject() for this case:

jQuery.isEmptyObject({}) // true
jQuery.isEmptyObject({ foo: "bar" }) // false

Read more on http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.isEmptyObject/

To really accept ONLY {}, the best way to do it in Javascript using Lodash is:

_.isEmpty(value) && _.isPlainObject(value)

Caveat! Beware of JSON's limitiations.

javascript:
  obj={  f:function(){}  };
  alert( "Beware!! obj is NOT empty!\n\nobj = {  f:function(){}  }" + 
               "\n\nJSON.stringify( obj )\n\nreturns\n\n" +
                        JSON.stringify( obj ) );

displays

    Beware!! obj is NOT empty!

    obj = {  f:function(){}  }

    JSON.stringify( obj )

    returns

    {}

IsEmpty Object, unexpectedly lost its meaning i.e.: it's programming semantics, when our famous guru from Yahoo introduced the customized non-enumerable Object properties to ECMA and they got accepted.

[ If you don't like history - feel free to skip right to the working code ]

I'm seeing lots of good answers \ solutions to this question \ problem. However, grabbing the most recent extensions to ECMA Script is not the honest way to go. We used to hold back the Web back in the day to keep Netscape 4.x, and Netscape based pages work and projects alive, which (by the way) were extremely primitive backwards and idiosyncratic, refusing to use new W3C standards and propositions [ which were quite revolutionary for that time and coder friendly ] while now being brutal against our own legacy.

Killing Internet Explorer 11 is plain wrong! Yes, some old warriors that infiltrated Microsoft remaining dormant since the "Cold War" era, agreed to it - for all the wrong reasons. - But that doesn't make it right!

Making use, of a newly introduced method\property in your answers and handing it over as a discovery ("that was always there but we didn't notice it"), rather than a new invention (for what it really is), is somewhat 'green' and harmful. I used to make such mistakes some 20 years ago when I still couldn't tell what's already in there and treated everything I could find a reference for, as a common working solution...

Backward compatibility is important !

We just don't know it yet. That's the reason I got the need to share my 'centuries old' generic solution which remains backward and forward compatible to the unforeseen future.

There were lots of attacks on the in operator but I think the guys doing that have finally come to senses and really started to understand and appreciate a true Dynamic Type Language such as JavaScript and its beautiful nature.

My methods aim to be simple and nuclear and for reasons mentioned above, I don't call it "empty" because the meaning of that word is no longer accurate. Is Enumerable, seems to be the word with the exact meaning.

function isEnum( x ) { for( var p in x )return!0; return!1 };

Some use cases:

isEnum({1:0})
true

isEnum({})
false

isEnum(null)
false

Thanks for reading!

Another alternative is to use is.js (14kB) as opposed to jquery (32kB), lodash (50kB), or underscore (16.4kB). is.js proved to be the fastest library among aforementioned libraries that could be used to determine whether an object is empty.

http://jsperf.com/check-empty-object-using-libraries

Obviously all these libraries are not exactly the same so if you need to easily manipulate the DOM then jquery might still be a good choice or if you need more than just type checking then lodash or underscore might be good. As for is.js, here is the syntax:

var a = {};
is.empty(a); // true
is.empty({"hello": "world"}) // false

Like underscore's and lodash's _.isObject(), this is not exclusively for objects but also applies to arrays and strings.

Under the hood this library is using Object.getOwnPropertyNames which is similar to Object.keys but Object.getOwnPropertyNames is a more thorough since it will return enumerable and non-enumerable properties as described here.

is.empty = function(value) {
    if(is.object(value)){
        var num = Object.getOwnPropertyNames(value).length;
        if(num === 0 || (num === 1 && is.array(value)) || (num === 2 && is.arguments(value))){
            return true;
        }
        return false;
    } else {
        return value === '';
    }
};

If you don't want to bring in a library (which is understandable) and you know that you are only checking objects (not arrays or strings) then the following function should suit your needs.

function isEmptyObject( obj ) {
    return Object.getOwnPropertyNames(obj).length === 0;
}

This is only a bit faster than is.js though just because you aren't checking whether it is an object.

It's weird that I haven't encountered a solution that compares the object's values as opposed to the existence of any entry (maybe I missed it among the many given solutions).
I would like to cover the case where an object is considered empty if all its values are undefined:

    const isObjectEmpty = obj => Object.values(obj).every(val => typeof val === "undefined")

    console.log(isObjectEmpty({}))                                 // true
    console.log(isObjectEmpty({ foo: undefined, bar: undefined })) // true
    console.log(isObjectEmpty({ foo: false,     bar: null }))      // false

Example usage

Let's say, for the sake of example, you have a function (paintOnCanvas) that destructs values from its argument (x, y and size). If all of them are undefined, they are to be left out of the resulting set of options. If not they are not, all of them are included.

function paintOnCanvas ({ brush, x, y, size }) {
  const baseOptions = { brush }
  const areaOptions = { x, y, size }
  const options = isObjectEmpty(areaOptions) ? baseOptions : { ...baseOptions, areaOptions }
  // ...
}

Pure Vanilla Javascript, and full backward compatibility

function isObjectDefined (Obj) {
  if (Obj === null || typeof Obj !== 'object' ||
    Object.prototype.toString.call(Obj) === '[object Array]') {
    return false
  } else {
    for (var prop in Obj) {
      if (Obj.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
        return true
      }
    }
    return JSON.stringify(Obj) !== JSON.stringify({})
  }
}

console.log(isObjectDefined()) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined('')) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined(1)) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined('string')) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined(NaN)) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined(null)) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined({})) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined([])) // false
console.log(isObjectDefined({a: ''})) // true

Best one-liner solution I could find (updated):

isEmpty = obj => !Object.values(obj).filter(e => typeof e !== 'undefined').length;

console.log(isEmpty({}))                                        // true
console.log(isEmpty({a: undefined, b: undefined}))              // true
console.log(isEmpty({a: undefined, b: void 1024, c: void 0}))   // true

console.log(isEmpty({a: [undefined, undefined]}))               // false
console.log(isEmpty({a: 1}))                                    // false
console.log(isEmpty({a: ''}))                                   // false
console.log(isEmpty({a: null, b: undefined}))                   // false

Sugar.JS provides extended objects for this purpose. The code is clean and simple:

Make an extended object:

a = Object.extended({})

Check it's size:

a.size()

This one line code helps with fallback to older browsers too.

var a = {}; //if empty returns false
(Object.getOwnPropertyNames ? Object.getOwnPropertyNames(a).length !== 0 : (function(){ for(var key in a) break; return !!key })()) //Returns False

var a = {b:2}; //if not empty returns true
(Object.getOwnPropertyNames ? Object.getOwnPropertyNames(a).length !== 0 : (function(){ for(var key in a) break; return !!key })()) //Returns true

Object.getOwnPropertyNames is implemented in ECMA-5. the above line works in older browsers with a fallback function.

Another quick solution is checking the length property of Object.keys, Object.entries or Object.values

Knowledge article: Follow this SO post for detailed difference between Object.keys Vs Object.getOwnPropertyNames

I know this doesn't answer 100% your question, but I have faced similar issues before and here's how I use to solve them:

I have an API that may return an empty object. Because I know what fields to expect from the API, I only check if any of the required fields are present or not.

For example:

API returns {} or {agentID: '1234' (required), address: '1234 lane' (opt),...}. In my calling function, I'll only check

if(response.data && response.data.agentID) { 
  do something with my agentID 
} else { 
  is empty response
}

This way I don't need to use those expensive methods to check if an object is empty. The object will be empty for my calling function if it doesn't have the agentID field.

We can check with vanilla js with handling null or undefined check also as follows,

function isEmptyObject(obj) {
  return !!obj && Object.keys(obj).length === 0 && obj.constructor === Object;
}

//tests

isEmptyObject(new Boolean());  // false 
isEmptyObject(new Array());    // false 
isEmptyObject(new RegExp());   // false 
isEmptyObject(new String());   // false 
isEmptyObject(new Number());   // false 
isEmptyObject(new Function()); // false 
isEmptyObject(new Date());     // false
isEmptyObject(null);          // false
isEmptyObject(undefined);     // false
isEmptyObject({});            // true

I can't believe after two years of programming js it never clicked that empty objects and array's aren't falsey, the weirdest thing is it never caught me out.

this will return true if the input is falsey by default or if it's an empty object or array. the inverse is the trueish function

http://codepen.io/synthet1c/pen/pjmoWL

function falsish( obj ){
    if( (typeof obj === 'number' && obj > 0) || obj === true ){
        return false;
    }
    return !!obj
        ? !Object.keys( obj ).length
        : true;
}

function trueish( obj ){
    return !falsish( obj );
}

falsish({})           //=> true
falsish({foo:'bar'})  //=> false
falsish([])           //=> true
falsish(['foo'])      //=> false
falsish(false)        //=> true
falsish(true)         //=> false
// the rest are on codepen