how to assign variable value as variable name in a hash?

Question

I need to define a hash for posting some ajax data using jQuery. The hash will look something like:

var setname = \'set_1\';
elements = { set_1: {\'beer\',\'         


        

Answer 1

You have to understand that there's really no such thing as "JSON notation" in Javascript - it's native Javascript notation that we're talking about. What jQuery wants is a Javascript value for the POST data, not necessarily a Javascript object constant.

Thus, your code will prepare your POST data like this:

var elements = {};
elements[setName] = { /* something */ };
elements[somethingElse] = { /* something else */ };

and so on. When you're ready to do the POST, you'd just use "elements":

$.post(url, elements, function() { /* callback code */ });

Answer 2

var setname = 'set_1', 
    elements = {};

elements[setname] = ['beer','water','wine'];

Answer 3

You can do what you'd like to like so:

var setname = 'set_1', elements = {};
elements[setname] = ['beer','water','wine'];
alert(elements['set_1']); // beer,water,wine

See this in action at http://jsfiddle.net/x5KRD/.

All objects in JS can be accessed using dot notation (obj.method() or obj.property), or bracket notation (obj['method']() or obj['property']). Using bracket notation lets you dynamically specify method/property/key names.

For example, while clumsy, window['alert']('hi') is equivalent to window.alert('hi').

Note that your code won't work as-is, anyways, because you're using object literal notation ({'beer','water','wine'}) to contain an array (it should be in square brackets ['beer','water','wine'] instead). Object literals need to have key-value pairs.