[javascript] Best way to find if an item is in a JavaScript array?

A robust way to check if an object is an array in javascript is detailed here:

Here are two functions from the xa.js framework which I attach to a utils = {} ‘container’. These should help you properly detect arrays.

var utils = {};

/**
 * utils.isArray
 *
 * Best guess if object is an array.
 */
utils.isArray = function(obj) {
     // do an instanceof check first
     if (obj instanceof Array) {
         return true;
     }
     // then check for obvious falses
     if (typeof obj !== 'object') {
         return false;
     }
     if (utils.type(obj) === 'array') {
         return true;
     }
     return false;
 };

/**
 * utils.type
 *
 * Attempt to ascertain actual object type.
 */
utils.type = function(obj) {
    if (obj === null || typeof obj === 'undefined') {
        return String (obj);
    }
    return Object.prototype.toString.call(obj)
        .replace(/\[object ([a-zA-Z]+)\]/, '$1').toLowerCase();
};

If you then want to check if an object is in an array, I would also include this code:

/**
 * Adding hasOwnProperty method if needed.
 */
if (typeof Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty !== 'function') {
    Object.prototype.hasOwnProperty = function (prop) {
        var type = utils.type(this);
        type = type.charAt(0).toUpperCase() + type.substr(1);
        return this[prop] !== undefined
            && this[prop] !== window[type].prototype[prop];
    };
}

And finally this in_array function:

function in_array (needle, haystack, strict) {
    var key;

    if (strict) {
        for (key in haystack) {
            if (!haystack.hasOwnProperty[key]) continue;

            if (haystack[key] === needle) {
                return true;
            }
        }
    } else {
        for (key in haystack) {
            if (!haystack.hasOwnProperty[key]) continue;

            if (haystack[key] == needle) {
                return true;
            }
        }
    }

    return false;
}