[javascript] How to avoid 'cannot read property of undefined' errors?

I like Cao Shouguang's answer, but I am not fond of passing a function as parameter into the getSafe function each time I do the call. I have modified the getSafe function to accept simple parameters and pure ES5.

/**
* Safely get object properties.    
* @param {*} prop The property of the object to retrieve
* @param {*} defaultVal The value returned if the property value does not exist
* @returns If property of object exists it is returned, 
*          else the default value is returned.
* @example
* var myObj = {a : {b : 'c'} };
* var value;
* 
* value = getSafe(myObj.a.b,'No Value'); //returns c 
* value = getSafe(myObj.a.x,'No Value'); //returns 'No Value'
* 
* if (getSafe(myObj.a.x, false)){ 
*   console.log('Found')
* } else {
*  console.log('Not Found') 
* }; //logs 'Not Found'
* 
* if(value = getSafe(myObj.a.b, false)){
*  console.log('New Value is', value); //logs 'New Value is c'
* }
*/
function getSafe(prop, defaultVal) {
  return function(fn, defaultVal) {
    try {
      if (fn() === undefined) {
        return defaultVal;
      } else {
        return fn();
      }
    } catch (e) {
      return defaultVal;
    }
  }(function() {return prop}, defaultVal);
}