Subj : Re: Serializing JavaScript in spidermonkey
To   : Marcello Bastea-Forte <marcello@cellosoft.com>
From : Brendan Eich <brendan@meer.net>
Date : Thu Jan 01 2004 04:44 pm

Marcello Bastea-Forte wrote:
> 
>> Yes, see my post at 
>> news://news.mozilla.org:119/3FF27935.6090803@meer.net, specifically:
> 
> 
> Ok, it seems I never sent an email I had written up in response to that.
> 
> I wrote some code to test toSource and uneval:
> 
> var state = new Array();

Why are you using an Array here?  You want Object, not Array, and you 
can say all this more concisely with an object literal (aka object 
initializer):

   var state = {beat_boss: true, name: "j0", number: 3};

Use an Array if you want length to be automatically maintained based on 
the greatest index used to access a property, and if you are indexing 
(using non-negative integer property ids).  Use Object otherwise.

/be

> state['beat_boss'] = true;
> state['name'] = "j0";
> state['number'] = 3;
> state['array'] = new Array();
> state['array']['beat_boss'] = true;
> state['array']['name'] = "j0";
> state['array']['number'] = 3;
> 
> print(uneval(state));
> print(state.toSource());
> 
> 
> The output I get is:
> []
> []
> 
> Marcello

.