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Object.getPrototypeOf()

The Object.getPrototypeOf() static method returns the prototype (i.e. the value of the internal [[Prototype]] property) of the specified object.

Try it

Syntax

js 
Object.getPrototypeOf(obj)

Parameters

obj

The object whose prototype is to be returned.

Return value

The prototype of the given object, which may be null.

Examples

Using getPrototypeOf

js 
const proto = {};
const obj = Object.create(proto);
Object.getPrototypeOf(obj) === proto; // true

Non-object coercion

In ES5, it will throw a TypeError exception if the obj parameter isn't an object. In ES2015, the parameter will be coerced to an Object.

js 
Object.getPrototypeOf("foo");
// TypeError: "foo" is not an object (ES5 code)
Object.getPrototypeOf("foo");
// String.prototype                  (ES2015 code)

Specifications

Specification
ECMAScript Language Specification
# sec-object.getprototypeof

Browser compatibility

Desktop Mobile Server
Chrome Edge Firefox Opera Safari Chrome Android Firefox for Android Opera Android Safari on IOS Samsung Internet WebView Android Deno Node.js
getPrototypeOf 5 12 3.5 12.1 5 18 4 12.1 5 1.0 4.4 1.0 0.10.0

See also

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Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License v2.5 or later.
https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Object/getPrototypeOf