Javascript function calling itself - javascript

I have a javascript function with two parameters : results which is an object array and i which is the index.
The function displays item from that array. I also want to to build links to show other entries in the array.
My code is:
function renderNews(results, i) {
$('.articleTitle').text(results[i].Title);
$('.articleBody').text(results[i].newsBody);
// Build links
var linkHtml = '';
for (var i = 0; i < results.length; i++) {
linkHtml += '' + (i + 1) + ' ';
}
$('.articleActions').html(linkHtml);
}
As you can see I am setting my onclick for the function to call itself to redraw the results. I get a "function not defined error".
I'm still very much learning as I go. Is it bad idea for a function to call itself? I wonder if anyone can advise on the right way of doing this.

If I understand, renderNews will be called when the page gets loaded, right? Actually, your links would be put inside a component with articleActions class. By your idea, clicking any link would call this function again, and all links would be replaced by a new links. This sounds strange. Also, I can't tell what do you expect when passing that results to the onclick event. Actually, if your idea was to always reuse the same results array, passing it undefinitely to the same function over and over again, you could make things much simpler:
function renderNews(results) {
if (results.length == 0)
return;
// Build links
var linkHtml = '';
for (var i = 0; i < results.length; i++)
linkHtml += '' + (i + 1) + ' ';
$('.articleActions').html(linkHtml);
$('.articleTitle').text(results[0].Title);
$('.articleBody').text(results[0].newsBody);
}
$('.article-link').click(function(){
$('.articleTitle').text($(this).data('articletitle'));
$('.articleBody').text($(this).data('articlebody'));
});
As far as I understand, whenever you want to update the current articles, you call renderNews which will build/rebuild a lot of links for each article in the array holding their data (title and body), and will load the first item. So renderNews is going to be called once the page loads (I don't know how you intend to do this).
There is a click event for any component with article-link class, in this case all your links (anchors). When one is clicked, it updates the screen (article's title and body) with its data.
You could improve the code to keep track of the selected item, and once renderNews is called, you load that article instead of the first one. Or you could keep passing the article's index as parameter, like your example.
Since I don't know how do you call renderNews function, it's hard to make a better code, but this might clear something to you.
Simple JSFiddle demo

Related

Iterating over jQuery selector with variable, using closures

[First time on stackoverflow.] I am trying to dynamically add html buttons to my page and then give them a javascript function to run when they are clicked, using jQuery's click. I want to have one button for each element in an array, so I used a for loop. My code looks like this (simplified)
for (var i = 0; i < results.length; i++) {
$("#" + place[i].place_id).click(function(){console.log("Test");})
$("#" + place[i].place_id).click();
}
(I inject buttons with the right id's in the same loop.) This code, when run, console logs "Test" the right number of times, but afterwards, only the last button responds "Test" when clicked. (This situation is a little absurd.) So, I think the event handler ends up using only the final value of i to assign the event handler. I think the problem has to do with closures, but I am not sure how to make a closure out of a jQuery Selector (and in general am not familiar with them).
In contrast, as a hack solution, I "manually" wrote code like the below right below and outside the for loop, and it works as expected, in that clicking causes the console log.
$("#" + place[0].place_id).click(function(){console.log("Test"););
$("#" + place[1].place_id).click(function(){console.log("Test");});
etc.
(Of course, this all occurs within a larger context - specifically a Google Maps Places API call's callback.)
First, am I understanding the problem correctly? Second, what would work? Should I take a different approach altogether, like use a .each()?
(I later would want to display a property of place[i] when clicked, which I would think would need another callback
My final hack code looks like this:
$("#" + place[0].place_id).click(function(){google.maps.event.trigger(placeMarkers[0], "click"); repeated 20 times
To do this, you can simply create a self executing function inside the for loop, like this:
for (var i = 0; i < results.length; i++) {
(function(index) {
$("#" + place[index].place_id).click(function() {
//Do something with place[index] here
});
})(i);
}

Extract value from an attribute from each link and assign an onclick using the fetched value?

I'm learning JS but have hit a roadblock. I have links that have the attribute "number". I'd like to extract the value of "number" from each link, set it as a new variable, and then assign an onclick action to each link incorporating the corresponding value. I've been able to extract each value but don't know how to use them in the onclicks.
HTML
<a class="button call" href="#" number="6135555556">Call pager</a>
<a class="button call" href="#" number="6135555555">Call cell</a>
JS
var data = document.getElementsByClassName("call");
var numbers = '';
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
numbers += data[i].getAttribute("number");
numbers[i].onclick = console.log("call " + numbers[i]);
}
If you want to the particular value on click of particular link then you can use this code.
var data = document.getElementsByClassName("call");
var numbers = [];
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
data[i].onclick = getNumber;
}
function getNumber(){
numbers.push(this.dataset['number']);
alert(this.dataset['number']);
}
Here is the DEMO
There is no number property on anchor tag, so for your need we can use data-* property which allows you to store needful information on html.
This may not be entity correct, but assuming what you wanted was to console log the contained phone number whenever a link was clicked, there are probably 3 main changes you'd want to look at.
1) I'm guessing you wanted to connect your onclick event to the link element with the number in it data[i], rather to the number itself?
2) += will concatenate each found value on to the previous one. This may be what you wanted, although in the below code I've changed it only to log the current number
3) onclick expects to be passed a function, which it will then run when the click event is fired. Wrapping your console log in a function provides it to the onClick in the format it expects.
Assuming all that's right, the js to work with the above links should look something like this:
var data = document.getElementsByClassName("call");
for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
data[i].onclick = function() { console.log("call " + this.getAttribute("number")); }
}
Hope that helps :)
Edit: Updated the code to fix the bug james montagne pointed out below. The getAttribute is now performed within the context of the click event, meaning the issue with scoping is avoided. Sorry about that, completely missed the issue.

Maintain Array value with a recursive javascript function

I have a program that we use at my work, which outputs its data in to XML files (several of them). I am trying to develop an HTA (yes an HTA, i'm sorry) to read these files and process their data. Unfortunately there are a number of XML files and I only need to read a few specific ones, so I am trying to write a generic "XML to array" function.
I got it to read the XML file and now I want to process the file into a 2d Array. However, since I am using a recursive function I seem to lose data. Here is the function:
NodesToArray = function (xmlDOC){
//Must redeclare "i" with each recursion, or it won't work correctly. ie: for(VAR i = 0...
for(var i = 0; i < xmlDOC.length ; i++){
//Just because it has a child still do the check.
if(xmlDOC[i].childNodes.length > 1){
//Recursively run the function.
var ReturnArray = NodesToArray(xmlDOC[i].childNodes);
//alert(ReturnArray + " " );
if(ReturnArray) return ReturnArray;
}else{
//Check to see if the node has a child node, if not and a child node is called, it will error out and stop
if(xmlDOC[i].hasChildNodes() == true){
return xmlDOC[i].firstChild.nodeValue;
}
}
}
}
Where I return the first child value I put an alert and was able to see all the data I wanted. Of course when I set it up I found it wasn't keeping the data. I've done a ton of reading and have been pounding my head against my desk and still can't come up with anything.
I've googled, searched this site, and consulted many forums, and can't find anything that would work for me. I post here reluctantly as I am at a dead end. Thanks for any help and I will provide any additional information as I can.
Just a note, but I would like to be able to do this without any libraries (specifically jQuery). The HTA doesn't seem to support a lot of newer Javascript. I'm not a professional coder by any means and learn by doing everything from scratch.
Not sure how to set the solution, but I found it
function NodesToArray(xmlDOC, returnArray){
for(var i = 0; i < xmlDOC.length ; i++){
if(xmlDOC[i].childNodes.length > 1){
returnArray[returnArray.length] = NodesToArray(xmlDOC[i].childNodes, []);
}else{
if(xmlDOC[i].hasChildNodes() == true){
returnArray[returnArray.length] = (xmlDOC[i].firstChild.nodeValue);
}
}
}
return returnArray;
}
getArray = NodesToArray(getXML.getElementsByTagName(tagName)[0].childNodes,[]);
Thanks for the help!
The general way of retrieving data recursively in the same container is to write two function:
First one is the one that you call and which returns the array
Second one is called by first function and does the recursion. To be able to put the data in the same array that function has to take it as parameter.
Here is some pseudo code
getData(node) {
_2D_array = new array[][];
getData(node, _2D_array, 0);
return array;
}
getData(node, _2D_array, depth) {
if(node) { // end of recursion ?
_2D_array[depth].add(...); // populate from node
getData(node.next, _2D_array, depth++);
}
}
Your program exits when the first element is processed because the function returns. A function can only return once. You need to move the return statements outside the loop so that the loop completes.

How to find a ModalPopupExtender in a JavaScript?

I need to write a Javascript function that run from Master page, to find a ModalPopup in the contenct page and close it. Following code works, but not what I want. I need use something like mpeEditUser.ClientID, but I got an error. Also, it would be nice if I could find a ModalPopup without knowing its id, by its type (ModalPopupExtender) instead. Any suggestion?
function CloseModalPopup() {
var mpu = $find('ctl00_ContentPlaceHolder1_mpeEditUser');
mpu.hide();
}
Here is my solution: (If you see any problem, please let me know. Thanks)
I get the ModalPopup id in the codebehind, and pass it to my javascript function.
In the Page_Load of the default.master.cs:
ContentPlaceHolder cph = (ContentPlaceHolder)FindControl("ContentPlaceHolder1");
string sMpeID = (AjaxControlToolkit.ModalPopupExtender)cph.FindControl("mpeEditUser");
In my Javascript function:
var mpe = $find('<%=sMpeID%>');
if (mpe != null) {
mpe.hide();
}
Its likely the tag is getting mucked up by being called through another page, this happened to me. I don't know the best fix for you, however the way I addressed the issue was to first find the mpe through a javascript function that looked for a vague match out of all of the elements on the page.
var elemets = document.getElementsByTagName("*");
var mpe;
for (var i = 0; i < elemets.length; i++) {
var id = elemets[i].id
if (id.indexOf("mpe") >= 0) {
mpe = elemets[i];
}
}
If you have more then one mpe on the page you may want to match more if the string. For me the elements function only returned about 50 elements, so it was not too much overhead. That may not be the case for you, but even if you dont use this function in the final product it will assist you in discovering the actual ID of the elment.

Why would .append randomly fail in jquery?

I'm using jquery to add elements to a blank list.
on the page I have:
<ul id="myList">
</ul>
and I go through a loop like this in the script that's called from a dynamically created event handler. (It's "onDrop" of a list item having been sorted with a drag operation)
var myListItemHTML;
for (var i = 0 ; i < 5 ; i++)
{
myListItemHTML += '<li id=listItem'+i+'>This is item number'+i+'</li>';
}
$('#myList').append(myListItemHTML);
and if I check after...
if ($('#myList li').length == 0 )
{
alert('Going to crash now since I'm expecting list items')
}
roughly 95% of the time the list is populated, but about 5% of the time I hit my alert that's going to cause an exception later.
Has anyone run into this? Is there a callback or way to know when/if the append really happens?
var myListItemHTML;
for (var i = 0 ; i < 5 ; i++)
{
$('#myList').append('<li id=listItem'+i+'>This is item number'+i+'</li>');
}
Try just appending inside the for loop.
if ($('#myList li').length == 0 )
{
alert('Going to crash now since I\'m expecting list items')
}
You need a \ before the ' so it doesn't conflict.
edit: jsfiddle that shows "undefined" http://jsfiddle.net/gyEre/1/
This is a bit of a longshot, because I'm making an assumption about your code beyond what was posted. Here goes:
I had a problem with some code once, which worked perfectly in all Browsers except Chrome, wherein it would fail randomly and seemingly without cause.
My problem, ultimately, was that Chrome was actually executing my JavaScript too fast, and that it was throwing off some of the timing in some of the AJAX calls that were being made earlier.
My code was such that AJAX event A triggered, which then passed data to AJAX event B. In Chrome only, though, I found that event B was on occasion occurring before event A, and that was the error condition.
If I recall, I think the solution was to force one key AJAX request to be made synchronously, though that should be used with care. Please see: http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.ajaxSetup/
I hope that's not too vague to be helpful. Good luck!
What I've learned is that I can't trust jquery for DOM manipulation called through dynamically created events. I welcome someone to prove me wrong, but this approach:
addListItem = function (itemID, itemText)
{
var li = document.createElement('li');
li.setAttribute("id", itemID);
var liText = document.createTextNode(itemText);
li.appendChild(goalTextNode);
document.getElementById('myList').appendChild(li);
}
for (var i = 0 ; i < 5 ; i++)
{
addListItem('listItem'+i, 'Item Text'+i);
}
will work 100% of the time and never fail.
In my experience, if the script in which the prepend function is used in the -tag, it will not work because the script is loaded before the DOM is ready.
To avoid this kind frustration, is a good habit to place your javascript before the tag.

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