Question

I’m creating a JSON object like

tags = {"jon":["beef","pork"],"jane":["chicken","lamb"]};

which was generated using php from an array like

$arr = array(
        'jon' => array('beef', 'pork'),
        'jane' => array('chicken', 'lamb')
       );
$tags = json_encode($arr);

And I want to check if something is in one or the other. None of these seem to work, but something like

if('lamb' in tags.jane)) {
    console.log('YES');
} else {
    console.log('NO');
}

writes NO to the console

if('foo' in tags.jane)) {
    console.log('YES');
} else {
    console.log('NO');
}

also writes NO to the console

so looking at

typeof(tags.jane);

it shows it’s an "object" but

console.log(tags);

shows the following:

Object
jane: Array[2]
    0: "chicken"
    1: "lamb"
    length: 2
    __proto__: Array[0]
jon: Array[2]
    0: "beef"
    1: "pork"
    length: 2
    __proto__: Array[0]
__proto__: Object

so i thought maybe tags.jane may actually be an array and tried

if($.inArray('lamb', tags.jane)) {
    console.log('YES');
} else {
    console.log('NO');
}

which writes YES to the console but

if($.inArray('foo', tags.jane)) {
    console.log('YES');
} else {
    console.log('NO');
}

also writes YES to the console.

Am I incorrectly building the JSON Object? Not targeting the value(s) properly? Any advice is greatly appreciated. If this would be easier as an array instead of an object, I have full control to change it. I’m just a bit stumped at how I should treat this.

Answer 1

jQuery.inArray returns -1 when element is not found. That’s true value from the POV of Javascript. Try this:

if($.inArray('foo', tags.jane) != -1) {