Question

I have been struggling with this problem the entire day. I feel like it’s super solvable, and I’m not sure where I’m going wrong. Each time I go to post this, I feel like I come up with a different solution that doesn’t end up working.

I’m looking to do the following:

var someObj = {};

// @param key - string - in the form of "foo-bar-baz" or "foo-bar". 
// (i won't know the number of segments ahead of time.)
// @param value - string - standard, don't need to act on it

function buildObject( key, value ) {

  var allKeys = key.split("-");

  // do stuff here to build someObj

}

Essentially the key will always take the format of key-key-key where i want to build someObj[key1][key2][key3] = value.

This JSFiddle contains a longer example with a sample layout of the data structure I want to walk away with.

Thanks so much for any help you can give.

Answer 1

var someObj = {};

// @param key - string - in the form of "foo-bar-baz" or "foo-bar". 
// (i won't know the number of segments ahead of time.)
// @param value - string - standard, don't need to act on it
function buildObject( key, value ) {

  var allKeys = key.split("-");
  var container, i, n;
  for (container = someObj, i = 0, n = allKeys.length; i < n - 1; ++i) {
    var keyPart = allKeys[i];
    container = Object.hasOwnProperty.call(container, keyPart)
        ? container[keyPart] : (container[keyPart] = {});
  }
  container[allKeys[n - 1]] = value;
}