I have the following JSON object:

var definitionsObject = {"pany" : "Some information about pany"};

This object will actually contain a lot of definitions, not just one. And I also have the following event handler for a link click which has a custom "data-name" attribute containing the term "pany":

$(".definitinOpener").click(function() {
      $this = $(this);
      var hintID = $this.attr("data-name");
      var hintText = definitionsObject.hintID;
});

So, what I'm trying to do is get the value of "data-name" custom attribute of the clicked link, go to the definitionsObject object and get the value of the field which is equal to the "data-name" attribute value. However in this way I'm always getting "undefined".

Could anybody please help me to figure out what exactly I'm doing wrong?

Thank you beforehand.

I have the following JSON object:

var definitionsObject = {"pany" : "Some information about pany"};

This object will actually contain a lot of definitions, not just one. And I also have the following event handler for a link click which has a custom "data-name" attribute containing the term "pany":

$(".definitinOpener").click(function() {
      $this = $(this);
      var hintID = $this.attr("data-name");
      var hintText = definitionsObject.hintID;
});

So, what I'm trying to do is get the value of "data-name" custom attribute of the clicked link, go to the definitionsObject object and get the value of the field which is equal to the "data-name" attribute value. However in this way I'm always getting "undefined".

Could anybody please help me to figure out what exactly I'm doing wrong?

Thank you beforehand.

• javascript
• jquery
• json

• 2 That's an object literal, not a "JSON object". – Šime Vidas Commented Jul 30, 2012 at 19:32

2 Answers 2

You can look up a value in an object in two ways.

var obj = { key : 'value' }
var lookup = 'key'

console.log( obj.lookup ) //undefined
console.log( obj.key ) //value
console.log( obj[lookup] ) //value

You probably want this:

var hintText = definitionsObject[hintID];

definitionsObject.hintID does not return definitionsObject[hintId], it will return definitionsObject['hintId'].

I belive you can acplish this with

var hintText = definitionsObject[hintId];

instead of

var hintText = definitionsObject.hintID;