Javascript setting object with variable

Question

I'm trying to set up an object using a variable. Here's what I have:

var sortby = 'post_date';
var sort = { sortby : 'asc' };

but when I console.log(sort) I get Object {sortby: "asc"}

How can I set the key of this object to the value of a variable?

this `{sortby : 'asc' };` interpreted as this `{'sortby' : 'asc' }`. So use `sort[sortby]` — befzz, Jun 18 '15 at 23:27

score 2 · Answer 1 · answered Jun 18 '15 at 23:23

2

Object literals can't have dynamic property names, but property setter syntax works:

var sortby = 'post_date';
var sort = { };
sort[sortby] = 'asc';

answered Jun 18 '15 at 23:23

Douglas

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Jun 18 '15 at 23:26

Prior to ES6 (the newest JavaScript standard), you could only do the following:

var sortby = 'post_date';
var sort = {};

sort[sortby] = 'asc';

However, if you made sure that you can use ES6 features for what you're doing, this is also possible:

var sortby = 'post_date';

var sort = {
  [sortby]: 'asc
};

See this pages for more information on ES6 features: https://github.com/lukehoban/es6features

2 Answers2