Question

Sometimes I need a more complex object in JavaScript and I usually do something like this.

var myVar = ArrayWithMetaData(GetStringArray(),{description: "These are numbers", ...});

function ArrayWithMetaData(arr, params){
    var temp = params;
    for(var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++)
        temp[i] = arr[i];
    return temp;
}

//TODO: Returns an array i.e. ["one", "two", "three"], may be very large 
function GetStringArray() {}

Is there a shorter method of accomplishing this or is there a library that provides similar functionality?

Also, is there a name for this type of javascript variable?

Answer 1

Another option is to define an object with straight json, where the array is one property, like:

var myVar = {"description": "These are numbers", "values": ["one", "two", "three"]};

Then you would just access the array using myVar.values.