Opposite of Object.freeze or Object.seal in JavaScript

Question

What is the opposite of Object.freeze or Object.seal? Is there a function that has a name such as detach?

Answer 1

You can't unfreeze a frozen object.

You can however make it so pesky libraries can't freeze anything in the future, by overriding the Object.freeze method to be a no-op:

Object.freeze = function(obj) { return obj; }; // just return the original object

In most cases this is enough. Just run the code above before the library is loaded, and it can no longer freeze anything. ; )

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EDIT: Some libraries, such as immer@7.0.7, have issues unless Object.isFrozen(obj) returns true after Object.freeze(obj) is called.

The below is thus a safer way of blocking object-freezing: (the primitive checks are because WeakSet errors if you pass in primitives)

const fakeFrozenObjects = new WeakSet();
function isPrimitive(val) {
    return val == null || (typeof val != "object" && typeof val != "function");
}
Object.freeze = obj=>{
    if (!isPrimitive(obj)) fakeFrozenObjects.add(obj);
    return obj;
};
Object.isFrozen = obj=>{
    if (isPrimitive(obj)) return true;
    return fakeFrozenObjects.has(obj);
};