How to pass object/template as parameter in Javascript/jQuery

Question

I'm attempting my first forray into jQuery. I'm trying to acheive the following, though I'm not sure of the terminology so will try to explain with an example using a kind of C#/pseudocode syntax.

Say I want an (anonymous) object as parameter, looking something like:

elemParameter {
    elemId,
    arg1,
    optionalArg2
}

and I want to pass an array/collection of these objects into my function

$(document).ready(function() {
    $.myFunction(
        new { Id = "div1", Color = "blue", Animal = "dog" },
        new { Id = "div3", Color = "green" },
        new { Id = "div4", Color = "orange", Animal = "horse" }
    );
}

and then in my function, I need to access each object of the collection, something like:

(function($) {
    $.myFunction(var elemParams) {
        foreach (param in elemParams) {
            $('#' + param.Id).onclick = function() {
                this.css('background-color', param.Color);
                alert(param.Animal ?? 'no animal specified');
            }
        }
    }
}

Can someone give me a few pointers to the correct syntax for passing parameters this way? Or suggest a better way of acheiving the same if this isn't the correct way to go about things in javascript.

Answer 1

Your syntax is just a bit off, it would look something like this:

$(function() {
  function myFunction() {
    $.each(arguments, function(i, arg) {
      $('#' + arg.Id).click(function() {
        $(this).css('background-color', arg.Color);
        alert(arg.Animal || 'no animal specified');
      });
    });
  }
  myFunction({ Id: "div1", Color: "blue", Animal: "dog" },
             { Id: "div3", Color: "green" },
             { Id: "div4", Color: "orange", Animal: "horse" });​
});

You can try a demo here, the syntax style is called JavaScript object literal notation, that's what you're googling for when looking for more info around this :)

Alternatively you can pass the objects in as an array if you want other arguments in addition to these, rather than using arguments directly.