Testing Objects for Properties task // dot notation vs square brackets

[ItsJames]

This is my solution for the testing objects for properties. I was stuck trying to return the property for ages using obj.checkProp so i switched it to the square brackets as seen below. I have no idea why the dot notation didn’t work , does anyone have an explanation?

[spoiler]function checkObj(obj, checkProp) {
// Only change code below this line
if (obj.hasOwnProperty(checkProp) !== false) {
return obj[checkProp];
} else {
return ‘Not Found’;
}
// Only change code above this line
}

[/spoiler]

[DanCouper]

The object doesn’t have a property called “checkProp”. obj.checkProp means "look up the property with the key 'checkProp' on the object obj".

checkProp is a variable, it isn’t the name of a key on the object. It needs to be evaluated before the lookup happens: obj[checkProp]. If the value of checkProp is, say, “bob”, then that would evaluate to obj.bob

[ItsJames]

@ItsJames

checkProp

Thanks for the explanation!