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Asked: 2026-06-17T12:53:05+00:00

Here is code that I have copied from w3schools, I have different code, but

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Here is code that I have copied from w3schools, I have different code, but the problem that I am having still happens in this simplified coding.

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<body>

<p id="demo">Click the button to create an array, then display it's length</p>

<button onclick="myFunction()">Try it</button>

<script>
function myFunction()
{
var fruits = ["Banana", "Orange", "Apple", "Mango"];
var foods = ["steak","pizza","bread","fruits"];
var x=document.getElementById("demo");
var y=foods[3];
x.innerHTML= y.length;
}
</script>

</body>
</html>

When I do x.innerHTML= fruits.length;, I get 4 back which is what I want to get.

But when I call 

var y=foods[3];
x.innerHTML= y.length;

I get 6 which is the length of the word "fruits" but I want the length of the array fruits.

How do I do this?

I’m using jQuery, don’t know if that affects anything. Do I have to add parenthesis or brackets somewhere?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    If (and only if) a variable (myVar) contains the name of a property of another object (myObj) you can use:

    myObj[myVar]

    to access that property.

    In this case, your fruits array is just a normal local variable, so there’s no way (short of the frowned-upon eval function) to access it indirectly.

    You can of course use fruits.length to directly find its length.

    A better solution would be a nested object of foods, and not an array:

    var foods = {
    fruits: [ "Banana", "Orange", "Apple", "Mango" ],
    steak: [ ... ],
    pizza: [ ... ],
    bread: [ ... ]
};

    at which point you can use the syntax above and write:

    var myType = 'fruits';
var count = foods[myType].length;
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