Are dashes allowed in javascript property names?

Question

I was looking at http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Authoring#Defaults_and_Options to create a simple plugin for jQuery. Following the section about options and settings, I did the following, which didn't work (the script quit when it encountered the setting).

var settings = {
    'location' : 'top',
    'background-color': 'blue'
}
...
$this.css('backgroundColor', settings.background-color); // fails here

Once I removed the dash from the background color, things work properly.

var settings = {
    'location' : 'top',
    'backgroundColor': 'blue' // dash removed here
}
...
$this.css('backgroundColor', settings.backgroundColor); 

Am I missing something, or are the jQuery docs wrong?

Answer 1

no. the parser will interpret it as the subtract operator.

you can do settings['background-color'].