It is pretty common to use a function like this when digging into objects in general JS code: function get(p, o) { var parts = p.split('.'); for (

It is pretty common to use a function like this when digging into objects in general JS code: function get(p, o) { var parts = p.split('.'); for (var i = 0, l = parts.length; i < l; i++) if (o.hasOwnProperty(parts[i])) o = o[parts[i]]; else return undefined; return o; } var o = { a: { b: { c: 1 } } }; console.log(get('a.b.c', o)); // 1 console.log(get('no.way', o)); // undefined I'd be more likely to reuse something like that because it's already useful in the codebase than bringing on another library. However, I am speaking out of ignorance, as it appears that the library you cite does a lot more than this simple thing: https://github.com/afeld/backbone-nested/blob/master/backbone-nested.js#L202 https://github.com/afeld/backbone-nested/blob/master/backbon... In any case safe lookup methods are very useful!