Question

First, let me just mention that this is my first attempt at a from-the-ground-up jQuery plugin.

For starters, I want my plugin to accept user defined options (+parms) via an object. For example:

<script>
    $(document).ready(function() {
        $('.myClass').augaetrk({
            myobja : {zero:'obj00 zero',one:'obj01 one',two:'obj02 two'},
            myobjb : {zero:'obj10 aaa',one:'obj11 bbb'}
        });
    }); 
</script>

Note: The names of those objects will not be predefined. They will be at the discretion of the developer using the plugin.

To cut a long story short, within the plugin I parse (for example) a link’s CSS classes to identify which user parms object I should be using further into the plugin. For example.

<a class="other-class-1 this-myobja otherclass-2" href="http://mylink.com">some link</a>

I can get the class – in this case this-myobja and the name of the object I need, myobja. What I can’t seem figure out is how to use that string/value as the name of the object whose parm values I want to access/utilize.

At the moment, I’m each’ing through the options and using a simple if to get to the object I want. It works but I would think I’m adding a lot of unnecessary overhead. In PHP I would use a $$ but I can’t seem to find that equivalent in jQuery.

How can I take the value I’m getting from parsing the link’s class= and then use the value to get corresponding (user) options?

If you’re able to help please type slow and assume I know even less than you think I might know. While probably a slightly advanced programming concept, I’m by no means an advanced – or even average – jQuery developer. I’m sure you’re busy but if you give an answer/example please keep in mind I’m trying to learn so a bit of explanation would be greatly appreciated. Thanks.

Answer 1

If you can get the name of the relevant part of your object from the class of the a, then you can reference it like this: object["stringKey"] or object[variable]. Given your example:

// this object mimics the object passed to your plugin
var myobj = {
    myobja: {
        zero: 'obj00 zero',
        one: 'obj01 one',
        two: 'obj02 two'
    },
    myobjb: {
        zero: 'obj10 aaa',
        one: 'obj11 bbb'
    }
}

var objectName = "myobja"; // This would be the value from the A elements' class
alert(myobj[objectName].zero)

Example fiddle