Combine or merge JSON on node.js without jQuery

Underscore's extend is the easiest and quickest way to achieve this, like James commented.

Here's an example using underscore:

var _ = require('underscore'), // npm install underscore to install
  object1 = {name: "John"},
  object2 = {location: "San Jose"};

var target = _.extend(object1, object2);

object 1 will get the properties of object2 and be returned and assigned to target. You could do it like this as well, depending on whether you mind object1 being modified:

var target = {};
_.extend(target, object1, object2);

If using Node version >= 4, use Object.assign() (see Ricardo Nolde's answer).

If using Node 0.x, there is the built in util._extend:

var extend = require('util')._extend
var o = extend({}, {name: "John"});
extend(o,  {location: "San Jose"});

It doesn't do a deep copy and only allows two arguments at a time, but is built in. I saw this mentioned on a question about cloning objects in node: https://stackoverflow.com/a/15040626.

If you're concerned about using a "private" method, you could always proxy it:

// myutil.js
exports.extend = require('util')._extend;

and replace it with your own implementation if it ever disappears. This is (approximately) their implementation:

exports.extend = function(origin, add) {
    if (!add || (typeof add !== 'object' && add !== null)){
        return origin;
    }

    var keys = Object.keys(add);
    var i = keys.length;
    while(i--){
        origin[keys[i]] = add[keys[i]];
    }
    return origin;
};

You should use "Object.assign()"

There's no need to reinvent the wheel for such a simple use case of shallow merging.

The Object.assign() method is used to copy the values of all enumerable own properties from one or more source objects to a target object. It will return the target object.

var o1 = { a: 1 };
var o2 = { b: 2 };
var o3 = { c: 3 };

var obj = Object.assign(o1, o2, o3);
console.log(obj);       // { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3 }
console.log(o1);        // { a: 1, b: 2, c: 3 }, target object itself is changed
console.log(obj === o1) // true

Even the folks from Node.js say so:

_extend was never intended to be used outside of internal NodeJS modules. The community found and used it anyway. It is deprecated and should not be used in new code. JavaScript comes with very similar built-in functionality through Object.assign.

---

Update:

You could use the spread operator

Since version 8.6, it's possible to natively use the spread operator in Node.js. Example below:

let o1 = { a: 1 };
let o2 = { b: 2 };
let obj = { ...o1, ...o2 }; // { a: 1, b: 2 }

Object.assign still works, though.

---

^{**PS1**: If you are actually interested in **deep merging** (in which internal object data -- in any depth -- is recursively merged), you can use packages like [deepmerge][4], [assign-deep][5] or [lodash.merge][6], which are pretty small and simple to use. **PS2**: Keep in mind that **Object.assign doesn't work with 0.X versions of Node.js**. If you are working with one of those versions (_you really shouldn't by now_), you could use `require("util")._extend` as shown in the Node.js link above -- for more details, check [tobymackenzie's answer to this same question](https://stackoverflow.com/a/22286375/36272).}