JavaScript Object/Array newbie (using jQuery)

Question

I have a function which needs to return either an array or object. I'm not sure which is best and I'm not sure how to construct it. Here's what I have so far. Pay close attention to the comments in ALL CAPS. The idea is to loop through a set of td cells that contain a 'data-field' attribute, and use the name of the attribute as the variable name and the text contained within the td as the value. The number of properties or values of the array/object are unknown. Depending on what was clicked to enter into the function, 2-6 values will be needed.

function InlineEditMode(rowID, entryType) {
// store current row data in case of cancel
var original = $('#'+rowID).contents();
// DEFINE SOME ARRAY OR OBJECT HERE
// put original values in the newEntry Array with a loop, using the 
// data-field attributes as the name of the array or object variables
// and the text of the td as the value
$('#'+rowID+' td[data-field]').each(function() {
 var field = $(this).attr('data-field');
 var value = $(this).text();
 // BUILD OUT OBJECT OR ARRAY
});
// RETURN ARRAY OR OBJECT
}

• Mike Tunnicliffe: Sounds like you need a hashmap/associative array

Answer 1

I believe something like this would work for your purposes.

function InlineEditMode(rowID, entryType) {
// store current row data in case of cancel
var original = $('#'+rowID).contents();
// DEFINE SOME ARRAY OR OBJECT HERE
var buildup = {};
// put original values in the newEntry Array with a loop, using the 
// data-field attributes as the name of the array or object variables
// and the text of the td as the value
$('#'+rowID+' td[data-field]').each(function() {
 var field = $(this).attr('data-field');
 var value = $(this).text();
 // BUILD OUT OBJECT OR ARRAY
 buildup[field] = value;
});
// RETURN ARRAY OR OBJECT
return buildup;
}

• Ben: why is var buildup defined with the curly brackets {} instead of []. I thought {} was for objects and [] for arrays.
• JoeyRobichaud: Buildup is an object. The notation buildup["foo"] = "Fii" is the same as saying buildup.foo = "Fii".
• Ben: I didn't know that. I much prefer buildup.foo , but i guess I can't use my field and value variables then... is that right?
• JoeyRobichaud: Arrays would not be a good container for name-value pairs. Are you wanting to support arrays? How would you expect the name-value pairs to be stored within the array?
• Ben: I agree that objects are better. I was just trying to do it like this: buildup.field = value which wasn't working

Answer 2

Try this:

function InlineEditMode(rowID, entryType) {
// store current row data in case of cancel
var original = $('#'+rowID).contents();
var toReturn = {};
// DEFINE SOME ARRAY OR OBJECT HERE
// put original values in the newEntry Array with a loop, using the 
// data-field attributes as the name of the array or object variables
// and the text of the td as the value
$('#'+rowID+' td[data-field]').each(function() {
 var field = $(this).attr('data-field');
 var value = $(this).text();
 toReturn[field] = value;
});
// RETURN ARRAY OR OBJECT
return toReturn;
}