Curly braces inside JavaScript arguments for functions

Question

What do the curly braces surrounding JavaScript arguments for functions do?

var port = chrome.extension.connect({name: "testing"});
port.postMessage         


        

Answer 1

Curly braces in javascript are used as shorthand to create objects. For example:

// Create an object with a key "name" initialized to the value "testing"
var test = { name : "testing" };
alert(test.name); // alerts "testing"

Check out Douglas Crockford's JavaScript Survey for more detail.