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Dynamically creating keys in javascript associative array
usually we initialize an array like this:
var ar = ['Hello', 'World'];
And for access to it's values we do:
alert(ar[0]); // Hello
But I want a custom index to assign, ex:
var ar = ['first' => 'Hello', 'second' => 'World'];
and then
alert(ar['first']);
But I can't find how, is there something like this that I could do for assign?
Thank's!
You could use Object instead of Array, you can specify named properties for object
var ar = {
first: 'hello',
second: 'world'
};
alert(ar['first']);
Also you can just assign properties with string keys to your array, this will also work:
var ar = [];
ar['first'] = 'first';
alert(ar['first']);
You need to use an Object.
var obj = {'first': 'hello', 'second': 'world'};
alert(obj.first);
Objects in JavaScript are just property bags (hashtables).
You can:
var ar = {};
ar["name"] = "Dave";
ar["salary"] = "Millions";
alert(ar.name); //Dave
alert(ar["salary"]); //millions
JavaScript allows you to be pretty flexible in how you create these objects.
JavaScript doesn't have associative arrays as such, but object literals:
var obj = {foo:'bar'};
obj.something = 'else';
//or:
obj['foo'] = 'BAR';
JS won't make a fuss if you create named indexes on an array (because the Array object traces back to the Object prototype) but you'll loose all use of Array features (methods like sort, or the magic length property, to name just a few)
just use
var h = new Object(); // or just {}
h['one'] = 1;
h['two'] = 2;
h['three'] = 3;
// show the values stored
for (var k in h) {
// use hasOwnProperty to filter out keys from the Object.prototype
if (h.hasOwnProperty(k)) {
alert('key is: ' + k + ', value is: ' + h[k]);
}
}
You can do this:
var ar = {
'first' :'Hello',
'second' : 'World'
};
As you can see, this is the way you initialize objects in Javascript. Javascript blurs the lines between associative arrays and objects.
You can then access this with:
ar['first']
Or even:
ar.first
Also, you could leave out the quotes in the key initialization, like so:
var ar = {
first :'Hello',
second : 'World'
};
['value'] and your object-form {'key' : 'value'}.