Comments on: JavaScript Associative Arrays Demystified

By: Nick

Nick — Thu, 15 Jul 2010 14:52:00 +0000

Just what I need. Thanks.

By: xk0der

xk0der — Fri, 08 Jan 2010 10:23:23 +0000

@Ulrich wrote “there are no real associative _arrays_ in JS”

That’s the whole point of this blog post , to clarify and put forth the point that “there are no associative arrays in JavaScript” instead they are properties of an Object.

Use of Array() in the initial examples is make it easier for the reader to understand the concept.

If you read the two paragraph above sub heading “Tip-4″ it mentions what you state in your comment.

By: Ulrich

Ulrich — Sun, 03 Jan 2010 14:02:53 +0000

I would use new Object() instead of new Array() for creation, because there are no real associative _arrays_ in JS.

By: seedogiag

seedogiag — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 10:06:59 +0000

Great, I didn’t heard about that until now. Thx!!

By: Joel Bradshaw

Joel Bradshaw — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 20:02:32 +0000

Awesome post! I’ve never quite understood how all this works, and this post cleared it right up. Thanks much!

By: Hans Schou

Hans Schou — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 12:20:47 +0000

As Steve, I was also looking for that curly bracket colon notation.

Thanks.

By: xk0der

xk0der — Wed, 05 Aug 2009 09:45:54 +0000

@Nelson:
You have a valid point, I just didn’t think about it, while writing.

I’ll correct the post.

Thanks for pointing out this issue

By: Nelson

Nelson — Mon, 03 Aug 2009 18:08:18 +0000

This is a great explanation and I’m seeing it pointed to a lot (like on StackOverflow). Thanks!

I’m new to Javascript, but I have opinions I think “I suggest you use the Array class (for simulating the associative array behavior)” may be bad advice. The problem is that your associative array thingie will have a bunch of properties like .length and functions like push() and sort() that don’t work on the data you’re actually storing there. A lot of the Javascript code I’m reading uses a plain Object instead, it seems clearer that way.

By: Alek Davis

Alek Davis — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 05:47:14 +0000

Good explanation. Thank you.

By: Noah

Noah — Thu, 30 Jul 2009 18:52:12 +0000

Nice article. Thanks!