adding to json property that may or may not exist yet

Question

let say I want to do this:

  var dashboard = {};
  var page = \"index\";

  $(\'.check\').click(function(){ 
    $(thi         


        

Answer 1

$.extend is the way to go

function elem(a,b){
var r={'pages':{'pagename':{}}};
r.pages.pagename[a]={'show':b};
return r;
}
data={};
//inside the event handler or something:
data = $.extend(true,data,elem($(this).closest('li').attr("id"),$(this).is(":hidden") ? 'collapsed' : 'expanded'));

But honestly - this is a rather messy idea to store this information anyway. I bet that if You need that information later it could be done with a good selector or with jQuery.data()