How to fix Syntaxerror: invalid shorthand property initializer in JavaScript

One common JavaScript error that you might encounter is:

Syntaxerror: invalid shorthand property initializer

This error occurs when you use the assignment = operator to assign a value to a property in your object.

To resolve this error, you need to replace the = operator with the colon : operator. Let’s see an example that causes this error and how you can quickly fix it.

Suppose you need to create an object named person that has two properties: first_name and last_name. You then create the object as follows:

const person = {
    first_name = 'John',
    last_name = 'Wick'
};

When you run the code above, you get this error:

Uncaught SyntaxError: Invalid shorthand property initializer

You can’t use the single equal = operator when assigning values to a property object. You need to use the colon : operator instead like this:

const person = {
    first_name: 'John',
    last_name: 'Wick'
};

console.log(person.first_name);  // John
console.log(person.last_name);  // Wick

As you can see, the colon : operator serves as a delimiter between key-value pair in a JavaScript object.

Once you replaced the single equal = operator with the colon : operator inside all objects you have in your code, the Syntaxerror: invalid shorthand property initializer should be resolved.

I hope this tutorial helps. Happy coding and stay awesome! 🙌

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