JavaScript equivalent of jQuery's extend method

Question

Background

I have a function that takes a config object as an argument. Within the function, I also have default object. Each of those

Answer 1

This is my slightly different approach with deep copy I came up with while trying to eliminate a jQuery dependency. It is mostly designed for being small so it might have not all feature one expects. Should be fully ES5-compatible (starting from IE9 due to usage of Object.keys):

function extend(obj1, obj2) {
    var keys = Object.keys(obj2);
    for (var i = 0; i < keys.length; i += 1) {
      var val = obj2[keys[i]];
      obj1[keys[i]] = ['string', 'number', 'array', 'boolean'].indexOf(typeof val) === -1 ? extend(obj1[keys[i]] || {}, val) : val;
    }
    return obj1;
  }

You may wonder what the fifth line does exactly do ... If obj2.key is an object literal (i.e. if it's no ordinary type) we recursively call extend on it. If a property with that name doesn't exist in obj1 yet, we initialize it to an empty object first. Otherwise we simply set obj1.key to obj2.key.

Here are some of my mocha/chai tests that should prove the common cases to work here:

it('should extend a given flat object with another flat object', () => {
  const obj1 = {
    prop1: 'val1',
    prop2: 42,
    prop3: true,
    prop4: 20.16,
  };
  const obj2 = {
    prop4: 77.123,
    propNew1: 'newVal1',
    propNew2: 71,
  };
  assert.deepEqual(utils.extend(obj1, obj2), {
    prop1: 'val1',
    prop2: 42,
    prop3: true,
    prop4: 77.123,
    propNew1: 'newVal1',
    propNew2: 71,
  });
});

it('should deep-extend a given flat object with a nested object', () => {
  const obj1 = {
    prop1: 'val1',
    prop2: 'val2',
  };
  const obj2 = {
    propNew1: 'newVal1',
    propNew2: {
      propNewDeep1: 'newDeepVal1',
      propNewDeep2: 42,
      propNewDeep3: true,
      propNewDeep4: 20.16,
    },
  };
  assert.deepEqual(utils.extend(obj1, obj2), {
    prop1: 'val1',
    prop2: 'val2',
    propNew1: 'newVal1',
    propNew2: {
      propNewDeep1: 'newDeepVal1',
      propNewDeep2: 42,
      propNewDeep3: true,
      propNewDeep4: 20.16,
    },
  });
});

it('should deep-extend a given nested object with another nested object and deep-overwrite members', () => {
  const obj1 = {
    prop1: 'val1',
    prop2: {
      propDeep1: 'deepVal1',
      propDeep2: 42,
      propDeep3: true,
      propDeep4: {
        propDeeper1: 'deeperVal1',
        propDeeper2: 777,
        propDeeper3: 'I will survive',
      },
    },
    prop3: 'lone survivor',
  };
  const obj2 = {
    prop1: 'newVal1',
    prop2: {
      propDeep1: 'newDeepVal1',
      propDeep2: 84,
      propDeep3: false,
      propDeep4: {
        propDeeper1: 'newDeeperVal1',
        propDeeper2: 888,
      },
    },
  };
  assert.deepEqual(utils.extend(obj1, obj2), {
    prop1: 'newVal1',
    prop2: {
      propDeep1: 'newDeepVal1',
      propDeep2: 84,
      propDeep3: false,
      propDeep4: {
        propDeeper1: 'newDeeperVal1',
        propDeeper2: 888,
        propDeeper3: 'I will survive',
      },
    },
    prop3: 'lone survivor',
  });
});

I'd be happy about feedback or comments on this implementation. Thanks in advance!