How to get object length

This should do it:

Object.keys(a).length

However, Object.keys is not supported in IE8 and below, Opera and FF 3.6 and below.

Live demo: http://jsfiddle.net/simevidas/nN84h/

Can be done easily with $.map():

var len = $.map(a, function(n, i) { return i; }).length;

For browsers supporting Object.keys() you can simply do:

Object.keys(a).length;

Otherwise (notably in IE < 9), you can loop through the object yourself with a for (x in y) loop:

var count = 0;
var i;

for (i in a) {
    if (a.hasOwnProperty(i)) {
        count++;
    }
}

The hasOwnProperty is there to make sure that you're only counting properties from the object literal, and not properties it "inherits" from its prototype.