We Keep Coding

If Else Conditionals within Function in JavaScript

I'm having issues with conditionals. I want to return the index where pattern starts in string (or -1 if not found). The search is to be case sensitive if the 3rd parameter is true otherwise it is case insensitive.
Examples
index("abAB12","AB",true) returns 2 but index("abAB12","AB",false) returns 0
index("abAB12","BA",true) returns -1 and index("abAB12","BA",false) returns 1
Any idea how I can accomplish this?
This is my code so far
var s = "abAB12"
var p = "AB"
var cs = true
function index(string, pattern, caseSensitive) {
if (pattern) {
var found = false;
if (caseSensitive = false) {
if (string.indexOf(pattern.) >= 0) {
found = true;
}
return (found);
else {
return ("");
}
} else if (caseSensitive = true) {
if (string.toLowerCase().indexOf(pattern.toLowerCase()) >= 0) {
found = true;
}
return (found);
} else {
return ("");
}
}
}
alert(index(s, p, cs));
Fiddle at http://jsfiddle.net/AfDFb/1/

You have some mistype in your code. On the 15th line you have
}
return (found);
else {
This is not not valid. Change it to
return (found);
}
else {
There is another one.
if (caseSensitive = false) {
= used for assignment. You need to use == in if statements when comparing.
Also on the 13th line, there's an extra . after pattern. Remove it.
if (string.indexOf(pattern.) >= 0) {
Your fiddle example

You can use string.search() with a regular expression to accomplish this in one liner:
function index(input, key, caseMatters) {
return input.search(new RegExp(key, caseMatters ? '' : 'i'));
}
Now you can:
index("abAB12","AB",true); // returns 2
index("abAB12","AB",false); // returns 0
index("abAB12","BA",true); // returns -1
index("abAB12","BA",false); // returns 1

You need to use double equals sign == in your if, else statements.
if(caseSensitive == false)
And
if(caseSensitive == true)

You are assigning value inside if condition instead of comparing it.
Try
if (caseSensitive == false) {
and
if(caseSensitive == true)

You'd better use search :
'abAB12'.search(/AB/); // 2
'abAB12'.search(/AB/i); // 0
'abAB12'.search(/BA/); // -1
'abAB12'.search(/BA/i); // 1
The i flag means "case insensitive" ( insensible à la casse :D ).

Javascript if value is in array else in next array

I have found a few posts on here with similar questions but not entirely the same as what I am trying. I am currently using a simple if statement that checks the data the user enters then checks to see if it starts with a number of different values. I am doing this with the following:
var value = string;
var value = value.toLowerCase();
country = "NONE";
county = "NONE";
if (value.indexOf('ba1 ') == 0 || value.indexOf('ba2 ') == 0 || value.indexOf('ba3 ') == 0) { //CHECK AVON (MAINLAND UK) UK.AVON
country = "UK";
county = "UK.AVON";
} else if(value.indexOf('lu') == 0){//CHECK BEDFORDSHIRE (MAINLAND UK) UK.BEDS
country = "UK";
county = "UK.BEDS";
}
I have about 20-30 different if, else statements that are basically checking the post code entered and finding the county associated. However some of these if statements are incredibly long so I would like to store the values inside an array and then in the if statement simply check value.indexOf() for each of the array values.
So in the above example I would have an array as follows for the statement:
var avon = new Array('ba1 ','ba 2','ba3 ');
then inside the indexOf() use each value
Would this be possible with minimal script or am I going to need to make a function for this to work? I am ideally wanting to keep the array inside the if statement instead of querying for each array value.

You can use the some Array method (though you might need to shim it for legacy environments):
var value = string.toLowerCase(),
country = "NONE",
county = "NONE";
if (['ba1 ','ba 2','ba3 '].some(function(str) {
return value.slice(0, str.length) === str;
})) {
country = "UK";
county = "UK.AVON";
}
(using a more performant How to check if a string "StartsWith" another string? implementation also)
For an even shorter condition, you might also resort to regex (anchor and alternation):
if (/^ba(1 | 2|3 )/i.test(string)) { … }

No, it doesn’t exist, but you can make a function to do just that:
function containsAny(string, substrings) {
for(var i = 0; i < substrings.length; i++) {
if(string.indexOf(substrings[i]) !== -1) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
Alternatively, there’s a regular expression:
/ba[123] /.test(value)

My recomendation is to rethink your approach and use regular expressions instead of indexOf.
But if you really need it, you can use the following method:
function checkStart(value, acceptableStarts){
for (var i=0; i<acceptableStarts.length; i++) {
if (value.indexOf(acceptableStarts[i]) == 0) {
return true;
}
}
return false;
}
Your previous usage turns into:
if (checkStart(value, ['ba1', ba2 ', 'ba3'])) {
country = 'UK';
}
Even better you can generalize stuff, like this:
var countryPrefixes = {
'UK' : ['ba1','ba2 ', 'ba3'],
'FR' : ['fa2','fa2']
}
for (var key in countryPrefixes) {
if (checkStart(value, countryPrefixes[key]) {
country = key;
}
}

I'd forget using hard-coded logic for this, and just use data:
var countyMapping = {
'BA1': 'UK.AVON',
'BA2': 'UK.AVON',
'BA3': 'UK.AVON',
'LU': 'UK.BEDS',
...
};
Take successive characters off the right hand side of the postcode and do a trivial lookup in the table until you get a match. Four or so lines of code ought to do it:
function getCounty(str) {
while (str.length) {
var res = countyMapping[str];
if (res !== undefined) return res;
str = str.slice(0, -1);
}
}
I'd suggest normalising your strings first to ensure that the space between the two halves of the postcode is present and in the right place.
For extra bonus points, get the table out of a database so you don't have to modify your code when Scotland gets thrown out of leaves the UK ;-)

Faster and shorter way to check if a cookie exists

What is the shorter and faster way to know if a cookie has a value or exists?
I'm using this to know if exists:
document.cookie.indexOf('COOKIENAME=')== -1
This to know if has a value
document.cookie.indexOf('COOKIENAME=VALUE')== -1
Any better? Any problems on this method?

I would suggest writing a little helper function to avoid what zzzzBov mentioned in the comment
The way you use indexOf, it would only evaluate correct if you check for the containment of a String in a cookie, it doesn't match a complete name, in that case the above would return false therefore giving you the wrong result.
function getCookie (name,value) {
if(document.cookie.indexOf(name) == 0) //Match without a ';' if its the firs
return -1<document.cookie.indexOf(value?name+"="+value+";":name+"=")
else if(value && document.cookie.indexOf("; "+name+"="+value) + name.length + value.length + 3== document.cookie.length) //match without an ending ';' if its the last
return true
else { //match cookies in the middle with 2 ';' if you want to check for a value
return -1<document.cookie.indexOf("; "+(value?name+"="+value + ";":name+"="))
}
}
getCookie("utmz") //false
getCookie("__utmz" ) //true
However, this seems to be a bit slow, so giving it an other approach with splitting them
Those are two other possibilities
function getCookie2 (name,value) {
var found = false;
document.cookie.split(";").forEach(function(e) {
var cookie = e.split("=");
if(name == cookie[0].trim() && (!value || value == cookie[1].trim())) {
found = true;
}
})
return found;
}
This one, using the native forEach loop and splitting the cookie array
function getCookie3 (name,value) {
var found = false;
var cookies = document.cookie.split(";");
for (var i = 0,ilen = cookies.length;i<ilen;i++) {
var cookie = cookies[i].split("=");
if(name == cookie[0].trim() && (!value || value == cookie[1].trim())) {
return found=true;
}
}
return found;
};
And this, using an old for loop, which has the advantage of being able to early return the for loop if a cookie is found
Taking a look on JSPerf the last 2 aren't even that slow and only return true if theres really a cookie with the name or value, respectively
I hope you understand what i mean

Apparently:
document.cookie.indexOf("COOKIENAME=VALUE");
For me, is faster, but only slightly.
As the test shows, surprisingly, it's even faster to split the cookie up into arrays first:
document.cookie.split(";").indexOf("COOKIENAME=VALUE");

I use Jquery cookie plugin for this.
<script type="text/javascript" src="jquery.cookie.js"></script>
function isCookieExists(cookiename) {
return (typeof $.cookie(cookiename) !== "undefined");
}

finding out if a text input includes a specific text with jquery

what is the best way of finding out if a text input includes a specific text with JQuery?
For example, how can I find out and return a Boolean result if $('#poo').val() includes airport?
EDIT
Here is the solution to my problem thanks to #Niklas;
var IsbtFortxtPropertyHotelNameOn = false;
$('#<%: txtPropertyHotelName.ClientID %>').keyup(function() {
if (/airport/i.test(this.value) && !IsbtFortxtPropertyHotelNameOn) {
$('#<%: txtPropertyHotelName.ClientID %>').btOn();
IsbtFortxtPropertyHotelNameOn = true;
} else if(IsbtFortxtPropertyHotelNameOn && !/airport/i.test(this.value)) {
$('#<%: txtPropertyHotelName.ClientID %>').btOff();
IsbtFortxtPropertyHotelNameOn = false;
}
});

If you want to have control over the case-sensitivity, you could use regex:
if (/airport/i.test(this.value)) alert('true');
It becomes especially useful if you need to check for multiple variables instead of just airport:
if (/(airport|station|docks)/i.test(this.value)) alert('true');
http://jsfiddle.net/niklasvh/tHLdD/

normally you'd do it with either indexOf or split functions, e.g.
$("#textInput").val().split("specifictext").length > 0
there's also Contains Selector:
Description: Select all elements that contain the specified text.
which serves a slightly different purpose but may be of use to you

if($("#elementId").val().indexOf("airport") != -1) {
//Contains "airport"
}
The JavaScript indexOf function returns the index of the first occurence of the specified string. If the string is not found, it returns -1.

Don't really know if it's the best way.. but
function findInpWithTxt(txt) {
var t = null;
$("input[type=text]").each(function() {
if ($(this).val().indexOf(txt) >= 0) {
t = this;
return false;
}
});
return t;
}
this will return the input if found, null if not

Javascript OR in an IF statement

I am trying to make an if statement in javascript that will do something if the variable does not equal one of a few different things. I have been trying many different variations of the OR operator, but I cant get it to work.
if(var != "One" || "Two" || "Three"){
// Do Something
}
Any ideas? Thanks!
Update:
I have tried this before:
if(var != "One" || var != "Two" || var != "Three"){
// Do Something
}
For some reason it does not work. My variable is pulling information from the DOM i dont know if that would effect this.
Actual Code
// Gets Value of the Field (Drop Down box)
var itemtype = document.forms[0].elements['itemtype' + i];
if(itemtype.value != "Silverware" || itemtype.value != "Gold Coins" || itemtype.value != "Silver Coins"){
// Do Something
}

Your expression is always true, you need:
if(!(myVar == "One" || myVar == "Two" || myVar == "Three")) {
// myVar is not One, Two or Three
}
Or:
if ((myVar != "One") && (myVar != "Two") && (myVar != "Three")) {
// myVar is not One, Two or Three
}
And, for shortness:
if (!/One|Two|Three/.test(myVar)) {
// myVar is not One, Two or Three
}
// Or:
if (!myVar.match("One|Two|Three")) {
// ...
}
More info:
De Morgan's Laws
Edit: If you go for the last approaches, since the code you posted seems to be part of a loop, I would recommend you to create the regular expression outside the loop, and use the RegExp.prototype.test method rather than String.prototype.match, also you might want to care about word boundaries, i.e. "noOne" will match "One" without them...

Assuming you mean "val does not equal One or Two or Three" then De Morgan's Theorem applies:
if ((val != "One") && (val != "Two") && (val != "Three")) {
// Do something...
}

For a shorter way to do it, try this format (copied from http://snook.ca/archives/javascript/testing_for_a_v):
if(name in {'bobby':'', 'sue':'','smith':''}) { ... }
or
function oc(a)
{
var o = {};
for(var i=0;i<a.length;i++)
{
o[a[i]]='';
}
return o;
}
if( name in oc(['bobby', 'sue','smith']) ) { ... }

The method mentioned by Mike will work fine for just 3 values, but if you want to extend it to n values, your if blocks will rapidly get ugly. Firefox 1.5+ and IE 8 have an Array.indexOf method you can use like so:
if(["One","Two","Test"].indexOf(myVar)!=-1)
{
//do stuff
}
To support this method on IE<=7, you could define a method called Array.hasElement() like so:
Array.prototype.hasElement = function hasElement(someElement)
{
for(var i=0;i<this.length;i++)
{
if(this[i]==someElement)
return true;
}
return false;
}
And then call it like so:
if(!["One","Two","Three"].hasElement(myVar))
{
//do stuff
}
Note: only tested in Firefox, where this works perfectly.

In addition to expanding the expression into three clauses, I think you'd better name your variable something other than var. In JavaScript, var is a keyword. Most browsers aren't going to alert you to this error.

Alternate way using an array:
var selected = ['Silverware', 'Gold Coins', 'Silver Coins'];
if ( selected.indexOf( el.value ) != -1 ) {
// do something if it *was* found in the array of strings.
}
Note: indexOf isnt a native method, grab the snippet here for IE:
https://developer.mozilla.org/En/Core_JavaScript_1.5_Reference/Objects/Array/IndexOf