# How to access an object property value in JavaScript

> Learn the two ways to read an object property value in JavaScript, the dot syntax and the square brackets accessor for dynamic or invalid key names.

Author: [Flavio Copes](https://flaviocopes.com/about/) | Published: 2020-06-10 | Topics: [JavaScript](https://flaviocopes.com/tags/js/) | Canonical: https://flaviocopes.com/javascript-access-object-property/

Say you have this object:

```js
const dog = {
  name: 'Roger'
}
```

To get the value of the `name` property, you can use the dot syntax, like this:

```js
dog.name
```

Or you can use the *square brackets property accessor* syntax:

```js
dog['name']
```

This is especially useful when a property has not a valid variable name, like `the name`:

```js
const dog = {
  'the name': 'Roger'
}

dog['the name']
```

and it's also very useful when you don't know the property name beforehand, and you evaluate it programmatically, like in this example that loops through the object property names:

```js
const dog = {
  'the name': 'Roger'
}

for (const [key, value] of Object.entries(dog)) {
  console.log(value)
}
```