Knowledge Base Articles » KB100213: Implementing Multi-dimensional Arrays in JavaScript.

Unlike VBScript, JavaScript does not natively support multi-dimensional arrays.  However, it is possible to simulate a multi-dimensional array by creating an array of arrays.  This brief article demonstrates the technique.

The following code snippet creates a "2-dimensional" array and populates it with two "rows" and three "columns" of data:

JavaScript code:

<script type="text/javascript">
//  Create the array
   var Room = new Array();
   Room[0] = new Array();
   Room[1] = new Array();

// Populate the array
   Room[0][0] = "white";
   Room[0][1] = "red";
   Room[0][2] = "blue";
   Room[1][0] = "black";
   Room[1][1] = "yellow";
   Room[1][2] = "purple";

// Iterate the array
  for (var i=0; i<2; i++)
    for (var j=0; j<3; j++)
      document.write(Room[i][j] + "<br>")
</script>

Browser output:
 
white
red
blue
black
yellow
purple

This concept is easily extended to simulate three- and higher- dimensional arrays.