[RESOLVED] Get value chosen from select, display the value of the array with that same name.

[jwiere03]

I am working on a little project here. I have two arrays (States, Cities) I am trying to allow the user to chose one from a select form (Choice) and then have the values of the chosen array displayed in a alert(). Obviously I could just write an if statement and display the required content depending on whether the value selected == States or Cities. But this project is just a placeholder project for me to figure out one aspect of a much larger project I am working on. And it is important for the result to be chosen dynamically as in the final project I won't know the values that the select field is being filled with.

What I need to do is take the value returned from the select field (Choice) and turn that into the name of the array and display that. If I use this code

alert(States); 

then it returns the values of that array. But like I said I need to be able to dynamically select what array to display based on users input

alert(document.getElementById("Choice").value); 

returns the value chosen. How can I take the value chosen and actually display the value of the array with that same name. In other words let JS know that I don't literally want it to display the value chosen but rather the value chosen is the name of the array I want it to display?

   1.
      Pseudo code
   2.
      x = document.getElementById("Choice").value;
   3.
      x is name of array;
   4.
      alert(x); 

Thanks

[Kor]

If your arrays are Global variables, they are also properties of the Global window object:

var x = document.getElementById("Choice").value
var chosenArray=window[x];

If not, post your code to see what other options we might have

[jwiere03]

Put that in there and it works fine, shows my the values of the array that is selected. Thanks, guess I need to Google the window object, any advice for a starting point?

[Kor]

Put that in there and it works fine, shows my the values of the array that is selected. Thanks, guess I need to Google the window object, any advice for a starting point?

I am afraid you won't find this in tutorials. At least not in an explicit way. But the relationship between the entities (variables, objects, primitives, properties, values, functions, methods...) is simple in JavaScript: everything is an object, or can be treated as an object, or transformed in an object, and all the objects can be express as being the properties of a comprehensive "parent" object. The ultimate Object is window