How to build a javascript array to be converted to JSON?

Question

I have a function that should

1. collect all input data in an array
2. put that array in JSON format (to be used as ajax post data)

Here's what I have, which seems like it should work, but when I log the stringified version, all I get is [].

function get_data_from_form() {
 var data = [];
 var inputs = $('form').find('input');
 $.each(inputs, function (index, value) {
 var name = $(this).attr('name');
 data[name] = value; // How should this change?
 });
 console.log('stringified data: ' + JSON.stringify(data)); // -> []
}

The desired output should be something like: "{ fname: 'turd', lname: 'ferguson' }"

What am I doing wrong? Would it be easier to just make a string and concat the name/value pairs?

• Daniel A. White: how do you correlate the fields?
• Matt Burland: What am I doing wrong? You are confusing arrays and objects. Your desired output is not an array, it's an object.
• Travis Heeter: @MattBurland Thanks, I was confusing objects and arrays.
• Alnitak: @TravisHeeter that's actually a trivial problem compared to the issue of extracting the value... :(
• Travis Heeter: @Alnitak You mean that I'm using the wrong selector: $('form').find(' input')? I actually just used that to simplify things I'm actually using classes, and it seems to work fine.

Answer 1

You should define a object, not an array

var data = {};
data[name] = value;

• Travis Heeter: Thanks. This and @Alnitak's 'this.value' worked. When I used data[name] = value; it gave me a bunch of metadata. data[name] = this.value worked.
• Travis Heeter: Oh, it gave me a bunch of metadata for the textarea, targeted with a class, and not input, so maybe that's why I got the metadata.

Answer 2

Your value extraction field is wrong - in the .each call the value parameter is the current element, not its value. Also, you need to capture the fields in a key/value store, i.e. an Object instead of an Array. Try this, instead:

var data = {}; // NB: *not* an array
$('form :input').each(function() {
 data[this.name] = this.value;
});

See http://jsfiddle.net/alnitak/hsy2xd5L/