Object.freeze()

Baseline Widely available

This feature is well established and works across many devices and browser versions. It’s been available across browsers since July 2015.

The Object.freeze() static method freezes an object. Freezing an object prevents extensions and makes existing properties non-writable and non-configurable. A frozen object can no longer be changed: new properties cannot be added, existing properties cannot be removed, their enumerability, configurability, writability, or value cannot be changed, and the object's prototype cannot be re-assigned. freeze() returns the same object that was passed in.

Freezing an object is the highest integrity level that JavaScript provides.

Try it

const obj = {
  prop: 42,
};

Object.freeze(obj);

obj.prop = 33;
// Throws an error in strict mode

console.log(obj.prop);
// Expected output: 42

Syntax

Object.freeze(obj)

Parameters

obj

The object to freeze.

Return value

The object that was passed to the function.

Description

Freezing an object is equivalent to preventing extensions and then changing all existing properties' descriptors' configurable to false — and for data properties, writable to false as well. Nothing can be added to or removed from the properties set of a frozen object. Any attempt to do so will fail, either silently or by throwing a TypeError exception (most commonly, but not exclusively, when in strict mode).

For data properties of a frozen object, their values cannot be changed since the writable and configurable attributes are set to false. Accessor properties (getters and setters) work the same — the property value returned by the getter may still change, and the setter can still be called without throwing errors when setting the property. Note that values that are objects can still be modified, unless they are also frozen. As an object, an array can be frozen; after doing so, its elements cannot be altered and no elements can be added to or removed from the array.

Private elements are not properties and do not have the concept of property descriptors. Freezing an object with private elements does not prevent the values of these private elements from being changed. (Freezing objects is usually meant as a security measure against external code, but external code cannot access private elements anyway.) Private elements cannot be added or removed from the object, whether the object is frozen or not.

freeze() returns the same object that was passed into the function. It does not create a frozen copy.

A TypedArray or a DataView with elements will cause a TypeError, as they are views over memory and will definitely cause other possible issues:

js
Object.freeze(new Uint8Array(0)); // No elements
// Uint8Array []

Object.freeze(new Uint8Array(1)); // Has elements
// TypeError: Cannot freeze array buffer views with elements

Object.freeze(new DataView(new ArrayBuffer(32))); // No elements
// DataView {}

Object.freeze(new Float64Array(new ArrayBuffer(64), 32, 0)); // No elements
// Float64Array []

Object.freeze(new Float64Array(new ArrayBuffer(64), 32, 2)); // Has elements
// TypeError: Cannot freeze array buffer views with elements

Note that as the standard three properties (buf.byteLength, buf.byteOffset and buf.buffer) are read-only (as are those of an ArrayBuffer or SharedArrayBuffer), there is no reason for attempting to freeze these properties.

Unlike Object.seal(), existing properties in objects frozen with Object.freeze() are made immutable and data properties cannot be re-assigned.

Examples

Freezing objects

js
const obj = {
  prop() {},
  foo: "bar",
};

// Before freezing: new properties may be added,
// and existing properties may be changed or removed
obj.foo = "baz";
obj.lumpy = "woof";
delete obj.prop;

// Freeze.
const o = Object.freeze(obj);

// The return value is just the same object we passed in.
o === obj; // true

// The object has become frozen.
Object.isFrozen(obj); // === true

// Now any changes will fail
obj.foo = "quux"; // silently does nothing
// silently doesn't add the property
obj.quaxxor = "the friendly duck";

// In strict mode such attempts will throw TypeErrors
function fail() {
  "use strict";
  obj.foo = "sparky"; // throws a TypeError
  delete obj.foo; // throws a TypeError
  delete obj.quaxxor; // returns true since attribute 'quaxxor' was never added
  obj.sparky = "arf"; // throws a TypeError
}

fail();

// Attempted changes through Object.defineProperty;
// both statements below throw a TypeError.
Object.defineProperty(obj, "ohai", { value: 17 });
Object.defineProperty(obj, "foo", { value: "eit" });

// It's also impossible to change the prototype
// both statements below will throw a TypeError.
Object.setPrototypeOf(obj, { x: 20 });
obj.__proto__ = { x: 20 };

Freezing arrays

js
const a = [0];
Object.freeze(a); // The array cannot be modified now.

a[0] = 1; // fails silently

// In strict mode such attempt will throw a TypeError
function fail() {
  "use strict";
  a[0] = 1;
}

fail();

// Attempted to push
a.push(2); // throws a TypeError

The object being frozen is immutable. However, it is not necessarily constant. The following example shows that a frozen object is not constant (freeze is shallow).

js
const obj1 = {
  internal: {},
};

Object.freeze(obj1);
obj1.internal.a = "value";

obj1.internal.a; // 'value'

To be a constant object, the entire reference graph (direct and indirect references to other objects) must reference only immutable frozen objects. The object being frozen is said to be immutable because the entire object state (values and references to other objects) within the whole object is fixed. Note that strings, numbers, and booleans are always immutable and that Functions and Arrays are objects.

Deep freezing

The result of calling Object.freeze(object) only applies to the immediate properties of object itself and will prevent future property addition, removal or value re-assignment operations only on object. If the value of those properties are objects themselves, those objects are not frozen and may be the target of property addition, removal or value re-assignment operations.

js
const employee = {
  name: "Mayank",
  designation: "Developer",
  address: {
    street: "Rohini",
    city: "Delhi",
  },
};

Object.freeze(employee);

employee.name = "Dummy"; // fails silently in non-strict mode
employee.address.city = "Noida"; // attributes of child object can be modified

console.log(employee.address.city); // "Noida"

To make an object immutable, recursively freeze each non-primitive property (deep freeze). Use the pattern on a case-by-case basis based on your design when you know the object contains no cycles in the reference graph, otherwise an endless loop will be triggered. For example, functions created with the function syntax have a prototype property with a constructor property that points to the function itself, so they have cycles by default. Other functions, such as arrow functions, can still be frozen.

An enhancement to deepFreeze() would be to store the objects it has already visited, so you can suppress calling deepFreeze() recursively when an object is in the process of being made immutable. For one example, see using WeakSet to detect circular references. You still run a risk of freezing an object that shouldn't be frozen, such as window.

js
function deepFreeze(object) {
  // Retrieve the property names defined on object
  const propNames = Reflect.ownKeys(object);

  // Freeze properties before freezing self
  for (const name of propNames) {
    const value = object[name];

    if ((value && typeof value === "object") || typeof value === "function") {
      deepFreeze(value);
    }
  }

  return Object.freeze(object);
}

const obj2 = {
  internal: {
    a: null,
  },
};

deepFreeze(obj2);

obj2.internal.a = "anotherValue"; // fails silently in non-strict mode
obj2.internal.a; // null