JavaScript foreach loop on an associative array object

Question

The .length property only tracks properties with numeric indexes (keys). You're using strings for keys.

You can do this:

var arr_jq_TabContents = {}; // no need for an array

arr_jq_TabContents["Main"] = jq_TabContents_Main;
arr_jq_TabContents["Guide"] = jq_TabContents_Guide;
arr_jq_TabContents["Articles"] = jq_TabContents_Articles;
arr_jq_TabContents["Forum"] = jq_TabContents_Forum;

for (var key in arr_jq_TabContents) {
    console.log(arr_jq_TabContents[key]);
}

To be safe, it's a good idea in loops like that to make sure that none of the properties are unexpected results of inheritance:

for (var key in arr_jq_TabContents) {
  if (arr_jq_TabContents.hasOwnProperty(key))
    console.log(arr_jq_TabContents[key]);
}

edit — it's probably a good idea now to note that the Object.keys() function is available on modern browsers and in Node etc. That function returns the "own" keys of an object, as an array:

Object.keys(arr_jq_TabContents).forEach(function(key, index) {
  console.log(this[key]);
}, arr_jq_TabContents);

The callback function passed to .forEach() is called with each key and the key's index in the array returned by Object.keys(). It's also passed the array through which the function is iterating, but that array is not really useful to us; we need the original object. That can be accessed directly by name, but (in my opinion) it's a little nicer to pass it explicitly, which is done by passing a second argument to .forEach() — the original object — which will be bound as this inside the callback. (Just saw that this was noted in a comment below.)

This is very simple approach. The advantage is you can get keys as well:

for (var key in array) {
    var value = array[key];
    console.log(key, value);
}

For ES6:

array.forEach(value => {
  console.log(value)
})

For ES6 (if you want the value, index and the array itself):

array.forEach((value, index, self) => {
  console.log(value, index, self)
})

If Node.js or the browser support Object.entries(), it can be used as an alternative to using Object.keys() (Pointy's answer).

const h = {
  a: 1,
  b: 2
};

Object.entries(h).forEach(([key, value]) => console.log(value));
// logs 1, 2

In this example, forEach uses destructuring assignment of an array.

There are some straightforward examples already, but I notice from how you've worded your question that you probably come from a PHP background, and you're expecting JavaScript to work the same way -- it does not. A PHP array is very different from a JavaScript Array.

In PHP, an associative array can do most of what a numerically-indexed array can (the array_* functions work, you can count() it, etc.). You simply create an array and start assigning to string indexes instead of numeric.

In JavaScript, everything is an object (except for primitives: string, numeric, boolean), and arrays are a certain implementation that lets you have numeric indexes. Anything pushed to an array will affect its length, and can be iterated over using Array methods (map, forEach, reduce, filter, find, etc.) However, because everything is an object, you're always free to simply assign properties, because that's something you do to any object. Square-bracket notation is simply another way to access a property, so in your case:

array['Main'] = 'Main Page';

is actually equivalent to:

array.Main = 'Main Page';

From your description, my guess is that you want an 'associative array', but for JavaScript, this is a simple case of using an object as a hashmap. Also, I know it's an example, but avoid non-meaningful names that only describe the variable type (e.g. array), and name based on what it should contain (e.g. pages). Simple objects don't have many good direct ways to iterate, so often we'll turn then into arrays first using Object methods (Object.keys in this case -- there's also entries and values being added to some browsers right now) which we can loop.

// Assigning values to corresponding keys
const pages = {
  Main: 'Main page',
  Guide: 'Guide page',
  Articles: 'Articles page',
  Forum: 'Forum board',
};

Object.keys(pages).forEach((page) => console.log(page));