run javascript from a string

Question

Hi im tying to run javascript from a string/array without eval if possible. here is kinda what I want.

code = ["document.write('hello')", "function(){}"];
code.run[1];

Any help would be appreciated, thanks.

Answer 1

The only way to run javascript from a string is to use eval().
Correction: Aside from eval("codeString");, new Function("codeString")(); will execute your code, too. The disadvantage of this is that your code will have to be interpreted when you when you call new Function(...), compared to optimisations the browser may use when pre-defining the code, like the example below.
So, eval("codeString"); and new Function("codeString")(); are possible, but bad ideas.

A better option would be to store functions in a array, like this:

function foo(){
    document.write('hello');
}
function bar(){
    return 1+2;
}

var code = [   foo,
               function(){
                   alert("Hi there!");
               },
               bar
           ];
code[0](); // writes "hello" to the document.
code[1](); // alerts "Hi there!"
code[2](); // returns 3.

Answer 2

You can execute it as a function.

Like this

function yourNewEval(){
    var code = ["document.write('hello');", "function(){}"];
    var F = new Function(code[0]);
    return(F());
}
yourNewEval();

Answer copied from Stefan's answer.

A lot of creative answers in How can I execute Javascript stored as a string?