CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptjquery
NiteTrip
NiteTrip

Reputation: 198

Dictionary with arrays of keys and values

This question is in regards to javascript or jQuery, whichever will get the job done better.

What I want to do is create an object similar to the following:

var prodItems = [
    {
        "product": "prod1",
        "item": ["prod1Item1", "prod1Item2"]
    },
    {
        "product": "prod2",
        "item": ["prod2Item1", "prod2Item2", "prod2Item3", "prod2Item4"]
    }
];

with this I can access the members like this:

prodItems[1]["product"] is "prod2"

prodItems[1]["item"][0] is "prod2Item1"

I would like to create this list dynamically and I am stumbling with the syntax, something like:

var menuItems;
menuItems.product[0] = "prod1";
menuItems.product[0].item[0] = "prod1Item1";

Can someone please give me some guidance on how I can do this?

Edit, i want to create a function with something like 

returnDict("prod2", "prod2Item3")

this will rearrange it like so:

 prodItems = [
    {
        "product": "prod2",
        "item": ["prod2Item3", "prod2Item1", "prod2Item2", "prod2Item4"]
    },
    {
        "product": "prod1",
        "item": ["prod1Item1", "prod2Item2"]

    }
];

Upvotes: 0

Views: 81

Answers (4)

gafi
gafi

Reputation: 12739

I see your question has been answered, but I want to suggest a small improvement to keep your code more DRY (Do not Repeat Yourself). You can use a simple function that will save you some extra typing when adding new objects.

var prodItems=[];

function addProduct(productName, items){
    var product={
        product: productName,
        items: items
    };
    prodItems.push(product);
};

//sample use
addProduct("prod2",["prod2Item3", "prod2Item1", "prod2Item2", "prod2Item4"])

This will definitely also become more flexible if you need to change the object structure at some later point.

Upvotes: 1

Ixrec
Ixrec

Reputation: 976

My "guidance" on constructing the object would be to avoid this style of inserting each string separately:

menuItems.product[0].product = "prod1";
menuItems.product[0].item[0] = "prod1Item1";

because this involves a lot of writing the same thing over and over, which is more error-prone and less readable/maintainable. I would prefer inserting more coarse-grained objects:

menuItems.product[0] = {
    product: "prod1",
    item: ["prod1Item1"];
}

Edit: Your edit is asking a completely different question, but it sounds like what you want to do is sort the elements of prodItems based on their "product" properties, then do the same thing for the "items" array inside the elements.

I think the simplest way to do this would be to use Array.sort() with a custom comparison function that returns -1 on the element you want to see at the top. Something like this (hastily written and untested):

function returnDict(product, item) {
    prodItems = prodItems.sort(function(a, b) {
        if(a.product === product) {
            return -1;
        } else if(b.product === product) {
            return 1;
        } else {
            return 0;
        }
    });
    prodItems[0].items = prodItems[0].items.sort(function(a, b) {
        if(a === item) {
            return -1;
        } else if(b === item) {
            return 1;
        } else {
            return 0;
        }
    });
    return prodItems;
}

Upvotes: 2

Dirk Horsten
Dirk Horsten

Reputation: 3845

var menuItems = [];
menuItems.push({product:"prod1",item:[]})
menuItems[menuItems.length-1].item.push("product1Item1")
menuItems[menuItems.length-1].item.push("product1Item2")
menuItems.push({product:"prod2",item:[]})
menuItems[menuItems.length-1].item.push("product2Item1")
menuItems[menuItems.length-1].item.push("product2Item2")
menuItems[menuItems.length-1].item.push("product2Item3")
menuItems[menuItems.length-1].item.push("product2Item4")

Upvotes: 2

Lumi Lu
Lumi Lu

Reputation: 3305

var prodItems = [
    {
        "product": "prod1",
        "item": ["prod1Item1", "prod2Item2"]
    },
    {
        "product": "prod2",
        "item": ["prod2Item1", "prod2Item2", "prod2Item3", "prod2Item4"]
    }
];

alert(prodItems[0].product);

for(var i = 0; i < prodItems.length; i++) {
   alert(prodItems[i].product);
}

Upvotes: 1

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