Category Archives: Monday Tips

Hi,

maybe this could sound obvious but is something that i didn’t know till a few days ago when i was making some changes on a js code i made. like the title says, the each() function used in mootools to apply a code to each element in the array, do not work with associative arrays.

so basically if you have this code:

var myArray=new Array();

myArray["key1"]="value1";

myArray["key2"]="value2";

myArray.each(function (item, index){

//do stuff

});

will not work, simply will not execute the loop on each array element. to fix this, you need to use the for loop like this:

var myArray=new Array();

myArray["key1"]="value1";

myArray["key2"]="value2";

for(key in myArray){

//do stuff

}

dunno if this is a mootools bug or was designed to work like this, but i hope this help you and save you time in debugging when you are using associative arrays.

update: from the comments below, let’s clarify some things:

*there is no associative arrays in javascript, they are objects, and i was wrong, indeed you can process it using the solution that Dimitar Christoff posted

var myArray= {};
myArray["key1"]="value1";
myArray["key2"]="value2";

Object.each(myArray, function (item, key){
console.log(item, key);
});

*when you process the object like this, you need to check that you are not processing the js methods that mootools define, personally i stop processing the object after i found the “$family” key, in the comments recommend to use the hasOwnProperty() function but i don’t see why is better or different than mine, if you know it, post it

thanks for the comments, i recognize when i’m wrong, for your collaboration, i’m a bit a better dev

Regards,

Shadow.