jQuery param() for associative array with values assigned at runtime

Question

I'm trying to serialize to URL string an associative array whose elements are defined at runtime in the form of arr[key]=value, where key and value are determined at runtime, but arr is predefined as a global before runtime. I can't get the param() function to work with this kind of array. Is there another function to use to serialize such arrays?

var arr=[];
arr["apple"]="poisoned";
arr["banana"]="digested";

var str=jQuery.param(arr);
$("#results").text(str);
​

Answer 1

Use object notation instead:

var arr={};
arr["apple"]="poisoned"; // or arr.apple
arr["banana"]="digested"; // or arr.banana

While objects and arrays operate in a similar same way in JS its still better to think of arrays as being numerically indexed arrays, as opposed to hashes.