object gets turned into array

Question

My object is getting turned into an array

this.projects = {};
var outerThis = this;
for(var i=0; i<10; i++){
 console.log(this.projects); // at this point projects is Object {}
 if(!(i in Object.keys(this.projects))){
 this.projects[i] = {title:"", trackOneUrl:"", trackTwoUrl:""};
 console.log(this.projects); // now its [object object]
 return;
 }
}

when I do:

this.projects[i] = {title:"", trackOneUrl:"", trackTwoUrl:""}

projects goes from being an Object to an Array.

What I was trying to achieve is

{'1':{title:"", trackOneUrl:"", trackTwoUrl:""}}

instead I get

[{title:"", trackOneUrl:"", trackTwoUrl:""}]

• Nick Zuber: Look at your code, you're treating your object like an array so you're going to get array like behavior
• peteb: Running this code in node yields { '0': { title: '', trackOneUrl: '', trackTwoUrl: '' } } which looks correct based on your desired outcome.
• Aj1: Did you try using this.projects.i = /// your assignment. jsfiddle.net/fNPvf/25810
• Nick Zuber: @Aj1 That seems like the way to go, I suggest you make that into an answer and explain why the way he's currently trying to do it is mutating his object into an array!
• John Dvorak: [object Object] is not an array.

Answer 1

Your this.projects will remain an object and it does exactly what you wanted it to be.

That [object Object] doesn't mean your projects becomes an array, that's a string representation of an object. Try calling String({}) and you will see the same effect.

Answer 2

this.projects is what is known as an object literal. {}

Create and array literal using []

From there you can assign an object to each index in the array using a simple for loop.

• peteb: this doesn't answer the question. The user is trying to create an object and use obj[] to access the properties on the object.

Answer 3

What you have will work fine if you take out the return.