How to determine if an object is an object literal in Javascript?

Is there any way to determine in Javascript if an object was created using object-literal notation or using a constructor method?

It seems to me that you just access it's parent object, but if the object you are passing in doesn't have a reference to it's parent, I don't think you can tell this, can you?

Solution

I just came across this question and thread during a sweet hackfest that involved a grail quest for evaluating whether an object was created with {} or new Object() (i still havent figured that out.)

Anyway, I was suprised to find the similarity between the isObjectLiteral() function posted here and my own isObjLiteral() function that I wrote for the Pollen.JS project. I believe this solution was posted prior to my Pollen.JS commit, so - hats off to you! The upside to mine is the length... less then half (when included your set up routine), but both produce the same results.

Take a look:

function isObjLiteral(_obj) {
  var _test  = _obj;
  return (  typeof _obj !== 'object' || _obj === null ?
              false :  
              (
                (function () {
                  while (!false) {
                    if (  Object.getPrototypeOf( _test = Object.getPrototypeOf(_test)  ) === null) {
                      break;
                    }      
                  }
                  return Object.getPrototypeOf(_obj) === _test;
                })()
              )
          );
}

Additionally, some test stuff:

var _cases= {
    _objLit : {}, 
    _objNew : new Object(),
    _function : new Function(),
    _array : new Array(), 
    _string : new String(),
    _image : new Image(),
    _bool: true
};

console.dir(_cases);

for ( var _test in _cases ) {
  console.group(_test);
  console.dir( {
    type:    typeof _cases[_test], 
    string:  _cases[_test].toString(), 
    result:  isObjLiteral(_cases[_test])  
  });    
  console.groupEnd();
}

Or on jsbin.com...

http://jsbin.com/iwuwa

Be sure to open firebug when you get there - debugging to the document is for IE lovers.