Dynamic variable names in Javascript

Question

I use jQuery Impromptu prompts in my application and they're very helpful.

However to call the Impromptu prompts you need to specify the button names and their return values like so:

$.prompt('Example 2',{ buttons: { Ok: true, Cancel: false } });

I would really like to have dynamic button names, something like this:

function showprompt(question, button1, button2) {
  $.prompt(question,{ buttons: { button1: true, button2: false } });
}

But this doesn't seem to work, the buttons are just called 'button1' and 'button2'!

I've tried using eval(button1) and ''+button1 but they bring up syntax errors.

Any suggestions?

Answer 1

Since property names in an object literal can be identifiers (rather than strings), you can't use a variable for them.

You have to create the object, and then use square bracket notation to assign the values.

function showprompt(question, button1, button2) {
  var buttons = { };
  buttons[button1] = true;
  buttons[button2] = false;
  $.prompt(question,{ buttons: buttons });
}