What is the difference between `new Object()` and object literal notation?

What is the difference between this constructor-based syntax for creating an object:

person = new Object()

...and this literal syntax:

person = {
    property1 : "Hello"
};

It appears that both do the same thing, although JSLint prefers you use object literal notation.

Which one is better and why?

There is no difference for a simple object without methods as in your example. However, there is a big difference when you start adding methods to your object.

Literal way:

function Obj( prop ) { 
    return { 
        p : prop, 
        sayHello : function(){ alert(this.p); }, 
    }; 
} 

Prototype way:

function Obj( prop ) { 
    this.p = prop; 
} 
Obj.prototype.sayHello = function(){alert(this.p);}; 

Both ways allow creation of instances of Obj like this:

var foo = new Obj( "hello" ); 

However, with the literal way, you carry a copy of the sayHello method within each instance of your objects. Whereas, with the prototype way, the method is defined in the object prototype and shared between all object instances. If you have a lot of objects or a lot of methods, the literal way can lead to quite big memory waste.

They both do the same thing (unless someone's done something unusual), other than that your second one creates an object and adds a property to it. But literal notation takes less space in the source code. It's clearly recognizable as to what is happening, so using new Object(), you are really just typing more and (in theory, if not optimized out by the JavaScript engine) doing an unnecessary function call.

These

person = new Object() /*You should put a semicolon here too.  
It's not required, but it is good practice.*/ 
-or-

person = {
    property1 : "Hello"
};

technically do not do the same thing. The first just creates an object. The second creates one and assigns a property. For the first one to be the same you then need a second step to create and assign the property.

The "something unusual" that someone could do would be to shadow or assign to the default Object global:

// Don't do this
Object = 23;

In that highly-unusual case, new Object will fail but {} will work.

In practice, there's never a reason to use new Object rather than {} (unless you've done that very unusual thing).

In JavaScript, we can declare a new empty object in two ways:

var obj1 = new Object();  
var obj2 = {};  

I have found nothing to suggest that there is any significant difference these two with regard to how they operate behind the scenes (please correct me if i am wrong – I would love to know). However, the second method (using the object literal notation) offers a few advantages.

1. It is shorter (10 characters to be precise)
2. It is easier, and more structured to create objects on the fly
3. It doesn’t matter if some buffoon has inadvertently overridden Object

Consider a new object that contains the members Name and TelNo. Using the new Object() convention, we can create it like this:

var obj1 = new Object();  
obj1.Name = "A Person";  
obj1.TelNo = "12345"; 

The Expando Properties feature of JavaScript allows us to create new members this way on the fly, and we achieve what were intending. However, this way isn’t very structured or encapsulated. What if we wanted to specify the members upon creation, without having to rely on expando properties and assignment post-creation?

This is where the object literal notation can help:

var obj1 = {Name:"A Person",TelNo="12345"};  

Here we have achieved the same effect in one line of code and significantly fewer characters.

A further discussion the object construction methods above can be found at: JavaScript and Object Oriented Programming (OOP).

And finally, what of the idiot who overrode Object? Did you think it wasn’t possible? Well, this JSFiddle proves otherwise. Using the object literal notation prevents us from falling foul of this buffoonery.

(From http://www.jameswiseman.com/blog/2011/01/19/jslint-messages-use-the-object-literal-notation/)

On my machine using Node.js, I ran the following:

console.log('Testing Array:');
console.time('using[]');
for(var i=0; i<200000000; i++){var arr = []};
console.timeEnd('using[]');

console.time('using new');
for(var i=0; i<200000000; i++){var arr = new Array};
console.timeEnd('using new');

console.log('Testing Object:');

console.time('using{}');
for(var i=0; i<200000000; i++){var obj = {}};
console.timeEnd('using{}');

console.time('using new');
for(var i=0; i<200000000; i++){var obj = new Object};
console.timeEnd('using new');

Note, this is an extension of what is found here: Why is arr = [] faster than arr = new Array?

my output was the following:

Testing Array:
using[]: 1091ms
using new: 2286ms
Testing Object:
using{}: 870ms
using new: 5637ms

so clearly {} and [] are faster than using new for creating empty objects/arrays.