Question

I want to bind two regular array into one associative array.
The values of the first are the keys and the values of the second are the elements.

var array1=new Array("key1","Key2","Key3");
var array2=new Array("Value1","Value2","Value3");

var associative_array=new Array();
for(var i=0;i<3;i++){

associative_array[array1[i]]=array2[i];
}

But when i try to get the length of the new associative array, i noticed it’s empty:

alert(associative_array.length);//always 0

What am doing wrong please? Thanx in advance.

Answer 1

In Javascript, use Objects for associative arrays. There are many ways to rewrite this, but using your example simply replace “new Array()” with “new Object()”:

var array1=new Array("key1","Key2","Key3");
var array2=new Array("Value1","Value2","Value3");

var associative_array=new Object();
for(var i=0;i<3;i++){
  associative_array[array1[i]]=array2[i];
}

You’ll need to implement something to get the size of the object. The following should be part of a function or method, but should illustrate the idea:

var o_size = 0;
for (key in associative_array) {
  o_size++;
}
alert(o_size);