Object serialize like form data serialize

Question

I am not sure if I am missing something or that is doesnt work like I think it does. I have some form data that I want to split. To do this I thought I could create another object with the values i want to like this:

let data = $('form').serializeArray();
let answers = {};
data.forEach(function(element) {
    // check if the element contains a answer input value
    if(element.name.indexOf('answer') !== -1) {
        answers[element.name] = element.value;
    }
});

console.log($('form').serialize()); 
// output:  answer%5B1%5D=1&answer%5B2%5D=2&answer%5B4%5D=3&answer%5B3%5D=4&sort=relevance&query=&area=..... etc
console.log(answers.serialize());   
// output: is not a function.

So again. I thought you could serialize a object to a string for data storage like I do with the form data.

Can someone explain to me what i am doing wrong and/or why serialize does not work?

Possible duplicate of Best way to serialize/unserialize objects in JavaScript? — peeebeee
– peeebeee, Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 13:26
@PatrickEvans That wil just convert it to a json string but not like a url params string like the serialize does. But someone answer my question, ty tho! — Niels Lucas
– Niels Lucas, Commented Aug 14, 2018 at 13:29

Patrick Evans · Accepted Answer · 2018-08-14 13:29:56Z

1

answers is not a jQuery object so it doesn't have a serialize() method. If you wanted to get a name-value pair string like you get with jQuery's serialize then you can use jQuery's param method

answers = {
  "answer1":1,
  "answer2":2
};
console.log(jQuery.param(answers));

<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/2.1.1/jquery.min.js"></script>

Otherwise if you are just wanting to serialize answers to JSON so that you can later recreate it then you just use JSON.stringify

    answers = {
      "answer1":1,
      "answer2":2
    };
    console.log(JSON.stringify(answers));

edited Aug 14, 2018 at 13:29

answered Aug 14, 2018 at 13:27

Patrick Evans

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