Creating associative arrays in JavaScript

Question

Using the following code:

$credits.getCredits = function() {
    return $(this).find( 'tbody' ).children( 'tr' ).map(function(){
        var $name = $(this).children(':first').html();
        var $role = $(this).children(':nth-child(2)').html();

        return { $role: $name };
    }).get();
}

Which looks through the elements of a credits list and should return a listing like the following:

[
     { 'Make-up': 'Bob' },
     { 'Make-up': 'Susan' },
     { 'Photography': 'Charlie' },
     { 'Lighting': 'Mike' },
     { 'Props': 'One-handed Tony' }
]

It ends up outputting this instead:

[
     { '$role': 'Bob' },
     { '$role': 'Susan' },
     { '$role': 'Charlie' },
     { '$role': 'Mike' },
     { '$role': 'One-handed Tony' }
]

How do you remedy the associative array creation to get the desired output?

Answer 1

Create the object (associative array) in two steps:

var obj = {};
obj[$role] = $name;
return obj

Whenever you use literals to create an object ({foo: bar}), the key will also be taken literally and will not be evaluated.

Answer 2

You need to return it a little differently if you want a dynamic name, like this:

$credits.getCredits = function() {
  return $(this).find( 'tbody' ).children( 'tr' ).map(function(){
    var $name = $(this).children(':first').html(),
        $role = $(this).children(':nth-child(2)').html(),
        result = {};
    result[$role] = $name;    

    return result;
  }).get();
}

You can try an example here (check the console). This is, well, just the way object literal syntax works. Since these are equivalent:

object.propertyName
object["propertyName"]

You can assign via that same route.

Answer 3

There are no associative arrays in JS. Just create a new object and assign like you want, e.g:

var $obj = {};
$obj.MakeUp = 'Bob';