How to copy JavaScript object to new variable NOT by reference?

Your only option is to somehow clone the object.

See this stackoverflow question on how you can achieve this.

For simple JSON objects, the simplest way would be:

var newObject = JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(oldObject));

if you use jQuery, you can use:

// Shallow copy
var newObject = jQuery.extend({}, oldObject);

// Deep copy
var newObject = jQuery.extend(true, {}, oldObject);

UPDATE 2017: I should mention, since this is a popular answer, that there are now better ways to achieve this using newer versions of javascript:

In ES6 or TypeScript (2.1+):

var shallowCopy = { ...oldObject };

var shallowCopyWithExtraProp = { ...oldObject, extraProp: "abc" };

Note that if extraProp is also a property on oldObject, its value will not be used because the extraProp : "abc" is specified later in the expression, which essentially overrides it. Of course, oldObject will not be modified.

I've found that the following works if you're not using jQuery and only interested in cloning simple objects (see comments).

JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(json_original));

Documentation

• JSON.parse()
• JSON.stringify()