How to get a key in a JavaScript object by its val

Question

I have a quite simple JavaScript object, which I use as an associative array. Is there a simple function allowing me to get the key for a value, or do I have to iterate the object and find it out manually?

Answer 1

I use this function:

Object.prototype.getKey = function(value){
  for(var key in this){
    if(this[key] == value){
      return key;
    }
  }
  return null;
};

Usage:

// ISO 639: 2-letter codes
var languageCodes = {
  DA: 'Danish',
  DE: 'German',
  DZ: 'Bhutani',
  EL: 'Greek',
  EN: 'English',
  EO: 'Esperanto',
  ES: 'Spanish'
};

var key = languageCodes.getKey('Greek');
console.log(key); // EL

Answer 2

http://jsfiddle.net/rTazZ/2/

var a = new Array(); 
    a.push({"1": "apple", "2": "banana"}); 
    a.push({"3": "coconut", "4": "mango"});

    GetIndexByValue(a, "coconut");

    function GetIndexByValue(arrayName, value) {  
    var keyName = "";
    var index = -1;
    for (var i = 0; i < arrayName.length; i++) { 
       var obj = arrayName[i]; 
            for (var key in obj) {          
                if (obj[key] == value) { 
                    keyName = key; 
                    index = i;
                } 
            } 
        }
        //console.log(index); 
        return index;
    } 

Answer 3

Since the values are unique, it should be possible to add the values as an additional set of keys. This could be done with the following shortcut.

var foo = {};
foo[foo.apple = "an apple"] = "apple";
foo[foo.pear = "a pear"] = "pear";

This would permit retrieval either via the key or the value:

var key = "apple";
var value = "an apple";

console.log(foo[value]); // "apple"
console.log(foo[key]); // "an apple"

This does assume that there are no common elements between the keys and values.

Answer 4

As if this question hasn't been beaten to a pulp...

Here's one just for whatever curiosity it brings you...

If you're sure that your object will have only string values, you could really exhaust yourself to conjure up this implementation:

var o = { a: '_A', b: '_B', c: '_C' }
  , json = JSON.stringify(o)
  , split = json.split('')
  , nosj = split.reverse()
  , o2 = nosj.join('');

var reversed = o2.replace(/[{}]+/g, function ($1) { return ({ '{':'}', '}':'{' })[$1]; })
  , object = JSON.parse(reversed)
  , value = '_B'
  , eulav = value.split('').reverse().join('');

console.log('>>', object[eulav]);

Maybe there's something useful to build off of here...

Hope this amuses you.

Answer 5

Here is my solution first:

For example, I suppose that we have an object that contains three value pairs:

function findKey(object, value) {

    for (let key in object)
        if (object[key] === value) return key;

    return "key is not found";
}

const object = { id_1: "apple", id_2: "pear", id_3: "peach" };

console.log(findKey(object, "pear"));
//expected output: id_2

We can simply write a findKey(array, value) that takes two parameters which are an object and the value of the key you are looking for. As such, this method is reusable and you do not need to manually iterate the object every time by only passing two parameters for this function.

Answer 6

function getKeyByValue(object, value) {
  return Object.keys(object).find(key => object[key] === value);
}

ES6, no prototype mutations or external libraries.