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up vote 0 down vote favorite

This question already has an answer here:

If I have an object such that

var object = function(key,text)
{
    this.key = key;
    this.text = text;
}

And create an array of these objects

var objArray = [];
objArray[0] = new object('key1','blank');
objArray[1] = new object('key2','exampletext');
objArray[2] = new object('key3','moretext');

is there a way that I can retrieve only one of the properties of all of the objects in the array? For example:

var keyArray = objArray["key"];

The above example doesn't return set keyArray to anything, but I was hoping it would be set to something like this:

keyArray = [
    'key1',
    'key2',
    'key3']

Does anyone know of a way to do this without iterating through the objArray and manually copying each key property to the key array?

share|improve this question

marked as duplicate by Felix Kling Jun 26 at 21:32

This question has been asked before and already has an answer. If those answers do not fully address your question, please ask a new question.

5 Answers 5

up vote 3 down vote accepted

This is easily done with the Array.prototype.map() function:

var keyArray = objArray.map(function(item) { return item["key"]; });

If you are going to do this often, you could write a function that abstracts away the map:

function pluck(array, key) {
  return array.map(function(item) { return item[key]; });
}

In fact, the Underscore library has a built-in function called pluck that does exactly that.

share|improve this answer
    
IE 8 and below does not support map –  Moogs Jun 26 at 21:29
    
The MDN documentation linked above includes a polyfill for IE8 and below. –  Jacob Krall Jun 26 at 21:32
    
Thank you! That worked perfectly –  ragesalmon Jun 26 at 21:33
    
function pluck(obj){return obj[this]} allows r.map(pluck,"key") –  dandavis Jun 26 at 22:29
    
@dandavis: agreed, that composes much more nicely (you can call r.filter(pluck, "key") to find items with a given key, for example). My version merely approximates what Underscore's _.pluck does. –  Jacob Krall Jun 27 at 12:09
up vote 0 down vote

You would want to do something like this:

objArray.map(function (obj) { return obj.key; });

Here is a JSFiddle to demo: http://jsfiddle.net/Q7Cb3/

If you need older browser support, you can use your own method:

JSFiddle demo: http://jsfiddle.net/Q7Cb3/1/

function map (arr, func) {
    var i = arr.length;
    arr = arr.slice();
    while (i--) arr[i] = func(arr[i]);
    return arr;
}
share|improve this answer
    
Note older browsers may not support map. –  Mike Christensen Jun 26 at 21:22
up vote 0 down vote

Well something has to iterate through the elements of the array. You can use .map() to make it look nice:

var keys = objArray.map(function(o) { return o.key; });

You could make a function to generate a function to retrieve a particular key:

function plucker(prop) {
  return function(o) {
    return o[prop];
  };
}

Then:

var keys = objArray.map(plucker("key"));
share|improve this answer
up vote 0 down vote

Really "objArray" is an array that have 3 objects inside, if you want list of keys, you can try this:

var keys = [];
for(a in objArray) {
    keys.push(objArray[a].key);
}

You have in var keys, the three keys.

Hope that helps! :)

share|improve this answer
1  
It is bad practice in JavaScript to use for ... in to iterate through arrays. –  Pointy Jun 26 at 21:30
    
for(var a = 0; a < objArray.lenght; a++){..} better, sorry. :) –  Rubén Guerrero Jun 26 at 21:31
up vote 0 down vote 
var object = function(key,text) {
    this.key = key;
    this.text = text;
}

var objArray = [];
objArray[0] = new object('key1','blank');
objArray[1] = new object('key2','exampletext');
objArray[2] = new object('key3','moretext');

var keys = objArray.map(function(o,i) {
  return o.key;
});

console.log(keys); // ["key1", "key2", "key3"]

JS Bin Example

http://jsbin.com/vamey/1/edit

Note that older browsers may not support map but you can easily do this with a for loop:

var keys = [];

for (var i = 0; i < objArray.length; i++) {
  keys.push(objArray[i].key);
}

JS Bin Example

http://jsbin.com/redis/1/edit

share|improve this answer

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