Question

Lets say I have 2 arrays:

var a = [];
var b = [];

a.push({id:1, name:"Joe"});
a.push({id:2, name:"Jeff"});
a.push({id:3, name:"John"});

Is there a quick way to populate b with just a‘s names in Javascript, or do I have to use a loop?

E.g, something like:

b = a[].name;    // b is now ["Joe","Jeff","John"]

Answer 1

With jQuery you can say:

var b = $.map(a, function(val, i) { return val.name; });

jQuery’s $.map() method is equivalent to JavaScript’s own Array.map() method, except the latter is a relatively new feature of JS and so doesn’t work in older browsers (i.e., pre-IE9).