Modify an Array Stored in an Object

Basic Data Structures: Modify an Array Stored in an Object
Now you've seen all the basic operations for JavaScript objects. You can add, modify, and remove key-value pairs, check if keys exist, and iterate over all the keys in an object. As you continue learning JavaScript you will see even more versatile applications of objects. Additionally, the optional Advanced Data Structures lessons later in the curriculum also cover the ES6 Map and Set objects, both of which are similar to ordinary objects but provide some additional features. Now that you've learned the basics of arrays and objects, you're fully prepared to begin tackling more complex problems using JavaScript!


Take a look at the object we've provided in the code editor. The user object contains three keys. The data key contains five keys, one of which contains an array of friends. From this, you can see how flexible objects are as data structures. We've started writing a function addFriend. Finish writing it so that it takes a user object and adds the name of the friend argument to the array stored in user.data.friends and returns that array.

Modify an Object Nested Within an Object

Basic Data Structures: Modify an Object Nested Within an Object
Now let's take a look at a slightly more complex object. Object properties can be nested to an arbitrary depth, and their values can be any type of data supported by JavaScript, including arrays and even other objects. Consider the following:

let nestedObject = {
  id: 28802695164,
  date: 'December 31, 2016',
  data: {
    totalUsers: 99,
    online: 80,
    onlineStatus: {
      active: 67,
      away: 13
    }
  }
};
nestedObject has three unique keys: id, whose value is a number, date whose value is a string, and data, whose value is an object which has yet another object nested within it. While structures can quickly become complex, we can still use the same notations to access the information we need.


Here we've defined an object, userActivity, which includes another object nested within it. You can modify properties on this nested object in the same way you modified properties in the last challenge. Set the value of the online key to 45.

Basic Data Structures: Add Key-Value Pairs to JavaScript Objects

Basic Data Structures: Add Key-Value Pairs to JavaScript Objects
At their most basic, objects are just collections of key-value pairs, or in other words, pieces of data mapped to unique identifiers that we call properties or keys. Let's take a look at a very simple example:

let FCC_User = {
  username: 'awesome_coder',
  followers: 572,
  points: 1741,
  completedProjects: 15
};
The above code defines an object called FCC_User that has four properties, each of which map to a specific value. If we wanted to know the number of followers FCC_User has, we can access that property by writing:

let userData = FCC_User.followers;
// userData equals 572
This is called dot notation. Alternatively, we can also access the property with brackets, like so:

let userData = FCC_User['followers']
// userData equals 572
Notice that with bracket notation, we enclosed followers in quotes. This is because the brackets actually allow us to pass a variable in to be evaluated as a property name (hint: keep this in mind for later!). Had we passed followers in without the quotes, the JavaScript engine would have attempted to evaluate it as a variable, and a ReferenceError: followers is not defined would have been thrown.


Using the same syntax, we can also add new key-value pairs to objects. We've created a foods object with three entries. Add three more entries: bananas with a value of 13, grapes with a value of 35, and strawberries with a value of 27.

Basic Data Structures: Iterate Through All an Array's Items Using For Loops

Basic Data Structures: Iterate Through All an Array's Items Using For Loops
Sometimes when working with arrays, it is very handy to be able to iterate through each item to find one or more elements that we might need, or to manipulate an array based on which data items meet a certain set of criteria. JavaScript offers several built in methods that each iterate over arrays in slightly different ways to achieve different results (such as every(), forEach(), map(), etc.), however the technique which is most flexible and offers us the greatest amount of control is a simple for loop.

Consider the following:

function greaterThanTen(arr) {
  let newArr = [];
  for (let i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
    if (arr[i] > 10) {
      newArr.push(arr[i]);
    }
  }
  return newArr;
}

greaterThanTen([2, 12, 8, 14, 80, 0, 1]);
// returns [12, 14, 80]
Using a for loop, this function iterates through and accesses each element of the array, and subjects it to a simple test that we have created. In this way, we have easily and programmatically determined which data items are greater than 10, and returned a new array containing those items.


We have defined a function, filteredArray, which takes arr, a nested array, and elem as arguments, and returns a new array. elem represents an element that may or may not be present on one or more of the arrays nested within arr. Modify the function, using a for loop, to return a filtered version of the passed array such that any array nested within arr containing elem has been removed.