Problem description
JavaScript has no built-in general map type (sometimes called associative array or dictionary) which allows to access arbitrary values by arbitrary keys. JavaScript's fundamental data structure is the object, a special type of map which only accepts strings as keys and has special semantics like prototypical inheritance, getters and setters and some further voodoo.
When usings objects as maps, you have to remember that the key will be converted to a string value via toString(), which results in mapping 5 and '5' to the same value and all objects which don't overwrite the toString() method to the value indexed by '[object Object]'. You might also involuntarily access its inherited properties if you don't check hasOwnProperty().
JavaScript's built-in array type does not help one bit: JavaScript arrays are not associative arrays, but just objects with a few more special properties. If you want to know why they can't be used as maps, look here.
Eugene's Solution
Eugene Lazutkin already described the basic idea of using a custom hash function to generate unique strings which can be used to look up the associated values as properties of a dictionary object. This will most likely be the fastest solution, because objects are internally implemented as hash tables.
- Note: Hash tables (sometimes called hash maps) are a particular implementation of the map concept using a backing array and lookup via numeric hash values. The runtime environment might use other structures (such as search trees or skip lists) to implement JavaScript objects, but as objects are the fundamental data structure, they should be sufficiently optimised.
In order to get a unique hash value for arbitrary objects, one possibility is to use a global counter and cache the hash value in the object itself (eg in a property named __hash).
A hash function which does this is and works for both primitive values and objects is:
function hash(value) {
return (typeof value) + ' ' + (value instanceof Object ?
(value.__hash || (value.__hash = ++arguments.callee.current)) :
value.toString());
}
hash.current = 0;
This function can be used as described by Eugene. For convenience, we will further wrap it in a Map class.
My Map implementation
The following implementation will additionally store the key-value-pairs in a doubly linked list in order to allow fast iteration over both keys and values. To supply your own hash function, you can overwrite the instance's hash() method after creation.
// linking the key-value-pairs is optional
// if no argument is provided, linkItems === undefined, i.e. !== false
// --> linking will be enabled
function Map(linkItems) {
this.current = undefined;
this.size = 0;
if(linkItems === false)
this.disableLinking();
}
Map.noop = function() {
return this;
};
Map.illegal = function() {
throw new Error("illegal operation for maps without linking");
};
// map initialisation from existing object
// doesn't add inherited properties if not explicitly instructed to:
// omitting foreignKeys means foreignKeys === undefined, i.e. == false
// --> inherited properties won't be added
Map.from = function(obj, foreignKeys) {
var map = new Map;
for(var prop in obj) {
if(foreignKeys || obj.hasOwnProperty(prop))
map.put(prop, obj[prop]);
}
return map;
};
Map.prototype.disableLinking = function() {
this.link = Map.noop;
this.unlink = Map.noop;
this.disableLinking = Map.noop;
this.next = Map.illegal;
this.key = Map.illegal;
this.value = Map.illegal;
this.removeAll = Map.illegal;
return this;
};
// overwrite in Map instance if necessary
Map.prototype.hash = function(value) {
return (typeof value) + ' ' + (value instanceof Object ?
(value.__hash || (value.__hash = ++arguments.callee.current)) :
value.toString());
};
Map.prototype.hash.current = 0;
// --- mapping functions
Map.prototype.get = function(key) {
var item = this[this.hash(key)];
return item === undefined ? undefined : item.value;
};
Map.prototype.put = function(key, value) {
var hash = this.hash(key);
if(this[hash] === undefined) {
var item = { key : key, value : value };
this[hash] = item;
this.link(item);
++this.size;
}
else this[hash].value = value;
return this;
};
Map.prototype.remove = function(key) {
var hash = this.hash(key);
var item = this[hash];
if(item !== undefined) {
--this.size;
this.unlink(item);
delete this[hash];
}
return this;
};
// only works if linked
Map.prototype.removeAll = function() {
while(this.size)
this.remove(this.key());
return this;
};
// --- linked list helper functions
Map.prototype.link = function(item) {
if(this.size == 0) {
item.prev = item;
item.next = item;
this.current = item;
}
else {
item.prev = this.current.prev;
item.prev.next = item;
item.next = this.current;
this.current.prev = item;
}
};
Map.prototype.unlink = function(item) {
if(this.size == 0)
this.current = undefined;
else {
item.prev.next = item.next;
item.next.prev = item.prev;
if(item === this.current)
this.current = item.next;
}
};
// --- iterator functions - only work if map is linked
Map.prototype.next = function() {
this.current = this.current.next;
};
Map.prototype.key = function() {
return this.current.key;
};
Map.prototype.value = function() {
return this.current.value;
};
Example
The following script
var map = new Map;
map.put('spam', 'eggs').
put('foo', 'bar').
put('foo', 'baz').
put({}, 'an object').
put({}, 'another object').
put(5, 'five').
put(5, 'five again').
put('5', 'another five');
for(var i = 0; i++ < map.size; map.next())
document.writeln(map.hash(map.key()) + ' : ' + map.value());
generates this output:
string spam : eggs
string foo : baz
object 1 : an object
object 2 : another object
number 5 : five again
string 5 : another five
Further considerations
PEZ suggested to overwrite the toString() method, presumably with our hash function. This is not feasible because it doesn't work for primitive values (changing toString() for primitives is a very bad idea). If we want toString() to return meaningful values for arbitrary objects, we would have to modify Object.prototype, which some people (myself not included) consider verboten.
Edit: The current version of my Map implementation as well as other JavaScript goodies can be obtained from here.