In Javascript, what is an options object?

Question

Now I have googling this a lot, but I cant seem to find what I am looking for. I am not talking about the options object that does drop down menus, I am talking about seeing st

Answer 1

An options object is an object passed into a method (usually a method that builds a jQuery widget, or similar) which provides configuration info.

An options object is usually declared using object literal notation:

var options = {
 width: '325px',
 height: '100px'
};

The options that are valid depend on the method or widget that you are calling. There is nothing 'special' about an options object that makes it different from any other javascript object. The object literal syntax above gives the same result as:

var options = new Object();
options.width = '325px';
options.height = '100px';

Example:

$( ".selector" ).datepicker({ disabled: true });
//create a jQuery datepicker widget on the HTML elements matched by ".selector",
//using the option: disabled=true

Answer 2

It is probably just a variable that the script created to hold a bunch of values.

var myoptions = new Object();    
myoptions.done = 1;
myoptions.welcome = 'Hello Dave'
myoptions.error = "I'm sorry dave, I can't do that".

Answer 3

I would guess that the options object is just JSON. It is created from

{ "options": { "remove": true, "enable": false, "instance": object }

That is how most Javascript libraries load/set options. You can reference the objects properties just like you are doing in the question.

Answer 4

There is no standard, universal object called options.

Most likely what's meant is that the library you're using happens to have a variable named options that has properties like remove, enable, and instance.

It's fairly common for library functions to take an options argument specifying... well... options — that is, supplementary settings the function can exploit. In cases where there are many variables you may want to set, a single object with those properties is cleaner than a function that takes a hundred ordered arguments.