Print / display a JavaScript variable's name instead of it's value

Ralph David Abernathy picture Ralph David Abernathy · Mar 21, 2014 · Viewed 30.9k times · Source

Is it possible to print / display a JavaScript variable's name? For example:

var foo=5;
var bar=6;
var foobar=foo+bar;

document.write(foo+ "<br>");
document.write(bar+ "<br>");
document.write(foobar + "<br>");

How would we print the variable's names so the output would be:

foo 
bar 
foobar

Rather than:

5
6
11

Answer

gfrobenius picture gfrobenius · Mar 21, 2014

You can put the variables in an object then easily print them this way: http://jsfiddle.net/5MVde/7/

See fiddle for everything, this is the JavaScript...

var x = {
    foo: 5,
    bar: 6,
    foobar: function (){
        var that=this;
        return that.foo+that.bar
    }
};

var myDiv = document.getElementById("results");

myDiv.innerHTML='Variable Names...';
for(var variable in x)
{
    //alert(variable);
    myDiv.innerHTML+='<br>'+variable;
}

myDiv.innerHTML+='<br><br>And their values...';
myDiv.innerHTML+='<br>'+x.foo+'<br>'+x.bar+'<br>'+x.foobar();

The JavaScript for...in statement loops through the properties of an object.

Another variation (thanks @elclanrs) if you don't want foobar to be a function: http://jsfiddle.net/fQ5hE/2/