associative array from javascript to activex object

Question

I need to pass an associative array from Javascript to a C++ activex control in IE6+. It seems a shame to write my own type for something so standard. It doesn't have to work with native JS objects, I can use a custom associative array type if I need.

I've been googling for a couple days and there isn't a lot of information on this subject. COM and ATL have to have this already, don't they?

Answer 1

This post by Eric Lippert may shed some light on how it could be done from C++. Take a look at his comments about a Javascript array being a Dispatch object. As such you could get the DISPIDs and call Invoke on each one. Another option is to convert the Javascript array to a SafeArray using VBArray (and a little VBScript), or you could just use the Scripting.Dictionary COM object, which is the equivalent of an associative array. A few resources are below.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/david.wang/archive/2006/07/04/howto-convert-between-jscript-array-and-vb-safe-array.aspx

http://www.java2s.com/Tutorial/JavaScript/0600__MS-JScript/DictionaryKeys.htm