Since this post is referred to often, I would like to add a use case.
It is probably often a PHP programmer who gives Javascript/Nodejs a try, who runs into this problem.
// my variables in PHP
$dogs = [...]; //dog values
$cats = [...]; //cat values
$sheep = [...]; //sheep values
Let's say I want to save them each in their own file (dogs.json, cats.json, sheep.json), not all at the same time, without creating functions like savedogs, savecats, savesheep. An example command would be save('dogs')
In PHP it works like this:
function save($animal) {
if(!$animal) return false;
file_put_contents($animal.'.json', json_encode($$animal));
return true;
}
In Nodejs/Javascript it could be done like this
// my variables in NodeJS/Javascript
let dogs = [...]; //dog values
let cats = [...]; //cat values
let sheep = [...]; //sheep values
function save(animal) {
if (!animal) return false;
let animalType = {};
animalType.dogs = dogs;
animalType.cats = cats;
animalType.sheep = sheep;
fs.writeFile(animal + '.json', JSON.stringify(animalType[animal]), function (err){
if (err) return false;
});
return true;
}
myVarMAX, then you combine"myVar"withMAX(what's that?) to formmyVarMAXagain? Why aren't you using arrays?