Use name attribute for HTML input to get the object

In ExpressJS using body-parser, there is a function to parse as a JavaScript object (or JSON, I'm not entirely sure) a set of input elements that have the same name attribute with specific keys.

HTML (for example) :

<input type="text" class="name" name="name[foo]" placeholder="input1"/>
<input type="text" class="name" name="name[bar]" placeholder="input2"/>

      

        
        
        
      

    

JavaScript (for example) :

var obj = req.body.name;

      

        
        
        
      

    

The object obj

is understood by JavaScript as{ "foo" : input1, "bar" : input2 }

I am trying to get similar functionality using standard jQuery to handle multiple related input forms. What I have tried so far - to no avail - is the following:

$(".name")

gives an object containing literal HTML (not useful for capturing key-value pairs).

$(".name").map(function () {return $(this).val();}).get();

prints an array of values, but contains no keys.

$("input[name='name']")

and $("input[name='name[]']")

give nothing.

I also tried the following to convert the inputs to an array, but it still doesn't serve the purpose of pulling information out of the form as a JavaScript / JSON object:

$.fn.inputsToArray = function () {
  var values= [];
  $.each(this, function (i, field) {
    values.push(field.value);
  });
  return values;
};

      

        
        
        
      

    

Is there a way to accomplish what I am trying to do without NodeJS / body-parser?

Decision:

Thanks to gaetanoM's excellent solution (taken below), I was able to create a generic jQuery function that can be called on any jQuery object (obviously this' will only work if the element is in format <input ... name="example[key]" ... />

, but I'm disconnecting).

The function is called like this:

var output = $(":input[name^=example]").inputsToObject();

      

        
        
        
      

    

The function is defined as follows:

$.fn.inputsToObject = function () {
  var values = {};
  values = $(this).get().reduce(function (acc, ele) {
    var key = ele.name.match(/\[(.*)\]$/)[1];
    acc[key] = $(ele).val();
    return acc;
  }, {})
  return values;
}