You could put the "about" as an object or array reference similar to:
var pageReferences = [];
pageReferences["about"] = "about.html";
var otherReference = {
"about": "about.html"
};
function loadPage(target) {
alert(pageReferences[target]);
alert(otherReference[target]);
$("#dashboard").load(target);
}
$(".nav li").click(function () {
loadPage($(this).attr("class"));
});
Both of these alerts will alert "about.html" referencing the appropriate objects.
EDIT: IF you wished to populate the object based on markup you could do:
var otherReference = {};
$(document).ready(function () {
$('.nav').find('li').each(function () {
var me = $(this).attr('class');
otherReference[me] = me + ".html";
});
});
You could even store the extension in an additional attribute:
var otherReference = {};
$(document).ready(function () {
$('.nav').find('li').each(function () {
var me = $(this).attr('class');
otherReference[me] = me + "." + $(this).attr("extension");
});
});
Better would be to simply put the page reference in a data element:
<li class="myli" data-pagetoload="about.html">Howdy</li>
$(".nav li").click(function () {
loadPage($(this).data("pagetoload"));
});
class="myclass about myotherclass"