Retrieving a property of a JSON object by index?

Objects in JavaScript are collections of unordered properties. Objects are hashtables.

If you want your properties to be in alphabetical order, one possible solution would be to create an index for your properties in a separate array. Just a few hours ago, I answered a question on Stack Overflow which you may want to check out:

• Iterating over a JavaScript object in sort order based on particular key value of a child object

Here’s a quick adaptation for your object¹:

var obj = {
    "set1": [1, 2, 3],
    "set2": [4, 5, 6, 7, 8],
    "set3": [9, 10, 11, 12]
};

var index = [];

// build the index
for (var x in obj) {
   index.push(x);
}

// sort the index
index.sort(function (a, b) {    
   return a == b ? 0 : (a > b ? 1 : -1); 
}); 

Then you would be able to do the following:

console.log(obj[index[1]]);

The answer I cited earlier proposes a reusable solution to iterate over such an object. That is unless you can change your JSON to as @Jacob Relkin suggested in the other answer, which could be easier.

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¹ You may want to use the hasOwnProperty() method to ensure that the properties belong to your object and are not inherited from Object.prototype.