How to document a dictionary in JSDoc?

Question

Having next example:

var CONF = {
    locale: {
        "en": {
            name: "English",
            lang: "en-US"
        },
        "es": {
            name: "Spanish",
            lang: "es-ES"
        }
    }
};

And knowing that what the locale property contains is a dictionary object, which comes from the database, how can I document its inner properties with JSDoc?

Currently I am thinking to typedef type for my locale objects, then may I be able to set the locale property to simply an Array of my defined type? Is this the right way to do it?

Answer 1

According to the JSDoc 3 docs:

Arrays and objects (type applications and record types)

An object with string keys and number values:

{Object.<string, number>}

So it would be:

/** @type {{locales: Object.<string, {name: string, lang: string}>}} */
var CONF = {
    locales: {
        en: {
            name: "English",
            lang: "en-US"
        },
        es: {
            name: "Spanish",
            lang: "es-ES"
        }
    }
};

Cleaner, using @typedef

/**
 * @typedef {{name: string, lang: string}} locale
 */
/**
 * @type {{locales: Object.<string, locale>}}
 */
var CONF = {
    locales: {
        en: {
            name: "English",
            lang: "en-US"
        },
        es: {
            name: "Spanish",
            lang: "es-ES"
        }
    }
};

Answer 2

As far as I can tell:

Using @typedef and @property to define a custom type is the "correct" way in JSDoc. But it is cumbersome to write and ugly to read (a cardinal sin in documentation).

The record type is much neater (note the double {{s):

   /** {{
         name:string, 
         lang:string
   }} */