Here is a simple Map
implementation that will work with any type of key, including object references, and it will not mutate the key in any way:
function Map() {
var keys = [], values = [];
return {
put: function (key, value) {
var index = keys.indexOf(key);
if(index == -1) {
keys.push(key);
values.push(value);
}
else {
values[index] = value;
}
},
get: function (key) {
return values[keys.indexOf(key)];
}
};
}
While this yields the same functionality as a hash table, it’s not actually implemented using a hash function since it iterates over arrays and has a worst case performance of O(n). However, for the vast majority of sensible use cases this shouldn’t be a problem at all. The indexOf
function is implemented by the JavaScript engine and is highly optimized.