MultiDimensional Array in JavaScript

Although JavaScript does not provide inbuilt support for MultiDimensional Arrays, however you can create a multidimensional array by creating a new array as an element of an existing array. In this example, we will see how to create a 3x3 matrix in JavaScript

<script type="text/javascript">

    // declare array of multi dimensions
    var arrOfArr = new Array(3); 
    // or declare as [[],[],[]] as suggested by Elijah 
    // allocate storage
    for (var x = 0; x < arrOfArr.length; x++) {
        arrOfArr[x] = new Array(3);
    }

    // Populate the array
    // first array
    arrOfArr[0][0] = "00";
    arrOfArr[0][1] = "01";
    arrOfArr[0][2] = "02";

    // second array
    arrOfArr[1][0] = "10";
    arrOfArr[1][1] = "11";
    arrOfArr[1][2] = "12";

    // third array
    arrOfArr[2][0] = "20";
    arrOfArr[2][1] = "21";
    arrOfArr[2][2] = "22";

    alert(arrOfArr);
</script>

Although here arrOfArr seems to be a one-dimensional array, each elements of the array is initialized with another 1-D array, thus making it an array of array i.e. 2-D array.

Similarly for a three-dimensional array, you would declare the array using

arrOfArr[x][y] = new Array();

and then use it using the following code:

arrOfArr[0][0][3] = "some value";

and so on.

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About The Author

Suprotim Agarwal, ASP.NET Architecture MVP works as an Architect Consultant and provides consultancy on how to design and develop Web applications.

Suprotim is also the founder and primary contributor to DevCurry, DotNetCurry and SQLServerCurry. He has also written an EBook 51 Recipes using jQuery with ASP.NET Controls.

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