Question

I have an array of objects in array notation. This array is going to be different every time.

I wish to be able to get the name of the elements in this array. The trouble I am having is that [object] is returned instead of returning assetA, for example. I know this is because assetA is an object itself.

An example of the code I have been using to test this is..

//the assetArray will have varying number of elements in the future
var assetArray=[assetX,assetY,assetZ, assetB, assetA];
var testtest=(new String(assetArray));
alert(testtest);
$.each(assetArray,function(intIndex,objValue){
    var test123=(new String(assetArray[intIndex]));
    alert(test123);
});

and the list of test assets are..

var assetX = {
    assetNumber: "TESTX",
    assetDescription: "FLUX CAPACITOR",
    assetManufacturer: "Honeywell",
    assetCustomer: "MCFLY",
    assetDate: "03/04/1956"
};
var assetY = {
    assetNumber: "C123Y",
    assetDescription: "HOVERBOARD",
    assetManufacturer: "GE",
    assetCustomer: "MCFLY",
    assetDate: "12/03/1945"
};
var assetZ = {
    assetNumber: "9000Z",
    assetDescription: "ROCKETFOOTBALL",
    assetManufacturer: "Fluke",
    assetCustomer: "MCFLY JR.",
    assetDate: "01/05/3030"
};
var assetA = {
    assetNumber: "C34JJXA",
    assetDescription: "TEST DESCRIPTION",
    assetManufacturer: "Elgar",
    assetCustomer: "CUSTOMER1",
    assetDate: "05/09/1923"
};
var assetB = {
    assetNumber: "C892ALB",
    assetDescription: "DMM",
    assetManufacturer: "Agilent",
    assetCustomer: "CUSTOMER2",
    assetDate: "02/12/1986"
};

Does anyone have experience with this kind of issue using jQuery?

Answer 1

Store your asset objects in an object as properties (i.e. use an associative array instead of an ordinal array):

var assets = {
    assetX: {
        assetNumber: "TESTX",
        assetDescription: "FLUX CAPACITOR",
        assetManufacturer: "Honeywell",
        assetCustomer: "MCFLY",
        assetDate: "03/04/1956"
    },
    assetY: {
        assetNumber: "C123Y",
        assetDescription: "HOVERBOARD",
        assetManufacturer: "GE",
        assetCustomer: "MCFLY",
        assetDate: "12/03/1945"
    },
    ...
};

$.each(assets, function (name, asset) {
    // name is the name (e.g. "assetX")
    // asset is the object instance
});