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what is the order of boolean logic in Javascript?

I wanted to use two Not and one and in booleans to test if the variable is neither upper case nor lower case.
I used this code so far but it didn't work as required:
else if ((x[i]) !== (x[i].toUpperCase()) && (x[i]!== x[i].toLowerCase()) ){
x.splice(x[i], 1);
}
This code was for a function that sorts entered strings yet uppercase are sorted first.
Here is the full code, I am also open to understanding better ways to create this function apart from boolean logic and the array methods I used.
function alpha(str){ // United States
var x = str.split(""); // [U,n,i,t,e,d,S,t,a,t,e,s]
var cap = [];
var small = [];
for (var i = 0; i<x.length; i++){
if (x[i] == x[i].toUpperCase()){
cap.push(x[i]);
}
else if ((x[i]) !== (x[i].toUpperCase()) && (x[i]!== x[i].toUpperCase()) ) {
x.splice(x[i], 1);
}
else {small.push(x[i]);}
}
var z = cap.sort();
var y = small.sort();
return z.concat(y).join("");
}
Please note the second else if statement is only useful because the code adds an empty space string at the beginning of the output, I'm not sure where it comes from, so please let me know if you have any idea how to sort this even without using the second else if.

In the ASCII table, upper case letters come first. That's why they come first when you sort alphabetically. Here's a link to a page on Wikipedia that shows the table with the upper case letters appearing first and their numerical equivalents. It's even printable.
Also, I took the liberty of simplifying your code a little. Seems like .splice() was not necessary.
function alpha( str ) {
var x = str.split(""); // [U,n,i,t,e,d,S,t,a,t,e,s]
var cap = [];
var small = [];
var length = x.length;
for (var i = 0; i < length; i++) {
if (x[i] === x[i].toUpperCase()) {
cap.push(x[i]);
} else if (x[i] === x[i].toLowerCase()) {
small.push(x[i]);
}
}
return cap.sort().concat(small.sort()).join("");
}
Maybe explain what you're trying to do? It most likely has been done before in some form and you definitely came to the right place to find an answer.

Is this what you want to do?
var str = "United States";
function alpha(str) {
return str.split('').sort().join('');
}
alert(alpha(str));

In all programming languages (as far as i know), boolean expressions are always evaluated from the left to the right with brackets of course.
So in the following example my_func() is called first, and then if there is the chance that the complete expression becomes true my_other_func() is called
if (my_func() && my_other_func()) {
// I only get here if my_func() AND my_other_func() return true
// If my_func() returns false, my_other_func() is never called
}
The same is true for the "or" operator in the following example
if (my_func() || my_other_func()) {
// I only get here if my_func() OR my_other_func() return true
// If my_func() returns true, my_other_func() is not called
}
So back to your code, in details this part (I reformated it a bit for better readability):
if (x[i] == x[i].toUpperCase()){
// only uppercase here
cap.push(x[i]);
} else if (x[i] !== x[i].toUpperCase() && x[i] !== x[i].toUpperCase()) {
// tested twice the same thing, so Im really sure that its not uppercase :D
// only lowercase here
x.splice(x[i], 1);
} else {
// I will never reach this
small.push(x[i]);
}
Im not sure what you want to do, but I hope the comments help to understand your code.

JavaScript Help (Loops and Arrays in Particular)

So I am doing an assignment for a required javascript class and am stuck on a couple of parts specifically. We are supposed to create a guessing game with an array where we prompt the user to guess names and if they match anything in the array to tally it up as points.
Anyway here is the main code, the part that I am stuck on is figuring out how to loop the code so when the user is prompted 3 times for a guess and each guess is taken into account
var sportsArray = ["Football","Basketball","Rollerblading","Hiking","Biking","Swimming"];
var name = prompt("Please enter your name.", "Enter Here");
var arrayGuess = prompt("Guess a sport.", "Enter Here");
var counter;
for (counter = 0; counter < sportsArray.length; counter++) {
if (arrayGuess === "Football"||"Basketball"||"Rollerblading"||"Hiking"||"Biking"||"Swimming"){
alert("Good Job");
} else {
arrayGuess;
}
}
So the goal is to prompt the user to guess a part of the original array and if they do let them know that, but if they don't take points away and make them guess again until they have guessed 3 times.
Anyway if someone could lend a hand it would be appreciated.

You cannot simultaneously compare one item to a whole bunch of things like this:
if (arrayGuess === "Football"||"Basketball"||"Rollerblading"||"Hiking"||"Biking"||"Swimming")
Instead, you have to compare it to each individual item:
if (arrayGuess === "Football"||
arrayGuess === "Basketball"||
arrayGuess === "Rollerblading"||
arrayGuess === "Hiking"||
arrayGuess === "Biking"||
arrayGuess === "Swimming")
Or, there are more effective ways to compare to multiple items such as:
if (" Football Basketball Rollerblading Hiking Biking Swimming ".indexOf(" " + arrayGuess + " ") !== -1)
Or, using an array:
if (["Football","Basketball","Rollerblading","Hiking","Biking","Swimming"].indexOf(arrayGuess) !== -1)
Or, if this comparison happened a lot, you'd build an object ahead of time and use it for a lookup:
var items = {"Football":true,"Basketball":true,"Rollerblading":true,"Hiking":true,"Biking":true,"Swimming":true};
if (items[arrayGuess] === true)
If you want to compare without regards for proper case, then you can lowercase what the user entered and compare that to lower case test values:
var items = {"football":true,"basketball":true,"rollerblading":true,"hiking":true,"biking":true,"swimming":true};
if (items[arrayGuess.toLowerCase()] === true)
FYI, it's also not clear why you're using a loop here at all. No loop is needed to prompt once and test against all the possible sports values.
If you have to cycle through an array with a loop, then you can do this:
var items = ["football","basketball","rollerblading","hiking","biking","swimming"];
var testVal = arrayGuess.toLowerCase();
var match = -1;
for (var i = 0; i < items.length; i++) {
if (testVal === items[i]) {
// found a match
match = i;
break;
}
}
if (match !== -1) {
// items[match] was the match
} else {
// no match
}

I see a couple of things wrong here, as was already mentioned, your comparison in the if statement needs to reference the variable each time it is compared. But additionally, since you are in a loop based on the length of your sportsArray variable, it would be better to not reference strings at all in the if statement, and instead do something more like the following:
if (arrayGuess === sportsArray[counter]) {
// Do stuff here
} else {
// Do other stuff here
}
Additionally, your else clause isn't going to behave quite like you are expecting it to. You are going to have to assign a new value to it, probably by way of another call to prompt. As of now you are only referencing the variable, which will do nothing. If you need to take three guesses, I would add an 'else if' clause into the mix where you get a new value for the variable, an let the else clause display a score and break out of the loop.
if (arrayGuess === sportsArray[counter]) {
// Add to the score
} else if (counter < 2) {
// We prompted for the first guess before the loop,
// so take the second and third here
arrayGuess = prompt("Guess a sport.", "Enter Here");
} else {
// Display score then break to exit the loop
break;
}

Generating random unique data takes too long and eats 100% CPU

WARNING: CPU Usage goes to 100%, be careful.
Link to the jsFiddle
This script has been written to design a dynamic snake and ladder board. Everytime the page is refreshed a new board is created. Most of the time all of the background images do not appear, and the CPU usage goes up to 100%. But on occasion all of them appear and the CPU usage is normal.
Opera shows some of the background images, Firefox lags and asks me if I wish to stop the script.
I believe that the problem is with these lines of code:
for(var key in origin) // Need to implement check to ensure that two keys do not have the same VALUES!
{
if(origin[key] == random_1 || origin[key] == random_2 || key == random_2) // End points cannot be the same AND starting and end points cannot be the same.
{
valFlag = 1;
}
console.log(key);
}

Your algorithm is very ineffective. When array is almost filled up, you literally do millions of useless iterations until you're in luck and RNG accidentally picks missing number. Rewrite it to:
Generate an array of all possible numbers - from 1 to 99.
When you need a random numbers, generate a random index in current bounds of this array, splice element and this random position, removing it from array and use its value as your desired random number.
If generated numbers don't fit some of your conditions (minDiff?) return them back to array. Do note, that you can still stall in loop forever if everything that is left in array is unable to fit your conditions.
Every value you pull from array in this way is guaranteed to be unique, since you originally filled it with unique numbers and remove them on use.
I've stripped drawing and placed generated numbers into array that you can check in console. Put your drawing back and it should work - numbers are generated instantly now:
var snakes = ['./Images/Snakes/snake1.png','./Images/Snakes/snake2.jpg','./Images/Snakes/snake3.gif','./Images/Snakes/snake4.gif','./Images/Snakes/snake5.gif','./Images/Snakes/snake6.jpg'];
var ladders = ['./Images/Ladders/ladder1.jpg','./Images/Ladders/ladder2.jpg','./Images/Ladders/ladder3.png','./Images/Ladders/ladder4.jpg','./Images/Ladders/ladder5.png'];
function drawTable()
{
// Now generating snakes.
generateRand(snakes,0);
generateRand(ladders,1);
}
var uniqNumbers = []
for(var idx = 1; idx < 100; idx++){ uniqNumbers.push(idx) }
var results = []
function generateRand(arr,flag)
{
var valFlag = 0;
var minDiff = 8; // Minimum difference between start of snake/ladder to its end.
var temp;
for(var i = 0; i< arr.length; ++i) {
var valid = false
// This is the single place it still can hang, through with current size of arrays it is highly unlikely
do {
var random_1 = uniqNumbers.splice(Math.random() * uniqNumbers.length, 1)[0]
var random_2 = uniqNumbers.splice(Math.random() * uniqNumbers.length, 1)[0]
if (Math.abs(random_1 - random_2) < minDiff) {
// return numbers
uniqNumbers.push(random_1)
uniqNumbers.push(random_2)
} else {
valid = true
}
} while (!valid);
if(flag == 0) // Snake
{
if(random_1 < random_2) // Swapping them if the first number is smaller than the second number.
{
var temp = random_1; random_1 = random_2; random_2 = temp
}
}
else // Ladders
{
if(random_1>random_2) // Swapping them if the first number is greater than the second number.
{
var temp = random_1; random_1 = random_2; random_2 = temp
}
}
// Just for debug - look results up on console
results.push([random_1, random_2])
}
}
drawTable()

I had a problem like this using "HighCharts", in a for loop - "browsers" have an in-built functionality to detect dead scripts or infinite loops. So the browsers halts or pop-ups up a message saying not responding. Not sure if you have that symptom!
This was resulted from a "loop" with a large pool of data. I wrote a tutorial on it on CodeProject, you might try it, and it might be your answer.
http://www.codeproject.com/Tips/406739/Preventing-Stop-running-this-script-in-Browsers

Handling events with new data before previous event has completed

This code takes two inputs: div, the div (actually a textbox) and target (a number). It'll then try and in/decrement the number in a pseudo-animated way. The problem is that I'm using jQuery sliders as one form of input, which can result in multiple calls before the first call finished. This isn't a problem unless the slider is quickly increased, and then decreased before the increase rollUp finishes, resulting in an eternal decrementing div. I can't figure out what's causing it. Thoughts?
function rollNum(div, target) {
var contentString = $(div).val();
content = parseInt(contentString.substring(1));
if(content === target)
return;
else if(div !== "#costMinusMSP" && div !== "#savingsWithMSP") {
var total = rollNumTotalCost(div, target);
rollNum("#costMinusMSP", total);
rollNum("#savingsWithMSP", total /*- somehow find the cost here*/)
}
if(isNaN(content))
content = 0;
var remainingChange = target - content;
if(remainingChange > 0)
loopUp();
else
loopDown();
function loopUp() {
var length = remainingChange.toString().length;
var incrementBy = 1;
//Find how far away we are from target
for(var i=0;i<length-1;i++)
incrementBy *= 10;
content += incrementBy;
remainingChange -= incrementBy;
$(div).val("$" + (content))
if(content === target)
return;
else if(content > target) {
$(div).val("$" + (target));
return;
}
setTimeout(loopUp, 60);
}
function loopDown() {
remainingChange = Math.abs(remainingChange);
var length = remainingChange.toString().length;
var decrementBy = 1;
//Find how far away we are from target
for(var i=0;i<length-1;i++)
decrementBy *= 10;
content -= decrementBy;
remainingChange -= decrementBy;
if(content < target) {
$(div).val("$" + (target));
return;
}
//This ensures we won't promise our clients negative values.
if(content <= 0) {
$(div).val("$0");
return;
}
$(div).val("$" + (content))
if(content === target)
return;
setTimeout(loopDown, 60);
}
}
Strangely enough, adjusting another slider (that modifies an unrelated div) fixes the eternal decrement.
Things I have tried:
-Creating a boolean "running" that the function sets to true, then false before it returns. If running was true, then the function would wait until it was false to continue executing. This killed the browser or achieved maximum stack.

SomeKittens of years ago: You've learned a lot since you asked this, particularly about managing state & multiple events (not to mention how to properly ask a StackOverflow question). A simple answer would be something like this:
var rolling = false;
function rollNum(div, target) {
if (rolling) { return; }
rolling = true;
// Set rolling to false when done
}
That's all well and good but it ignores any events that are fired while we're rolling. The above won't adjust to changes on the slider made after the first adjustment, but before the numbers have finished rolling. Now, I (we?) would use Angular ($scope.$watch would come in handy here) but that didn't exist when you were working on this. Instead of passing a target number, why don't we check against the live value on the slider? (Note the use of vanilla JS, it's much faster).
var rollNum = function(textarea) {
var content = parseInt(textarea.value.substring(1), 10)
, target = parseInt(document.getElementById('sliderId').value, 10);
if (content === target) {
return;
}
// Roll up/down logic
setTimeout(function() { rollNum(textarea); }, 60);
};
A few other misc changes:
Use brackets after if statements. Waaaay easier to debug
Don't forget the radix param in parseInt
Unfortunately, you didn't think to include a JSFiddle, so I can't provide a live demonstration.

Tab completion from array of strings

I am building an IRC client and I am hoping to implement a solution to tab complete names. I have a list of users in the form of an array. When the user presses the tab key it completes the username. When they press the key again it completes with the next user.
I have a working solution here, but I feel like it could be a little more optimized and terse. I would be grateful for any suggestions.
// Get Active Window
var channel = irc.chatWindows.getActive();
// Get users input
var sentence = $('#chat-input').val().split(' ');
// Get the last word in the sentence
var partialMatch = sentence.pop();
// Get list of users
var users = channel.userList.getUsers();
// Set default index for loop
var userIndex=0;
//Persist the match
//Store the partialMatch to persist next time the user hits tab
if(window.partialMatch === undefined) {
window.partialMatch = partialMatch;
} else if(partialMatch.search(window.partialMatch) !== 0){
window.partialMatch = partialMatch;
} else {
if (sentence.length === 0) {
userIndex = users.indexOf(partialMatch.substr(0, partialMatch.length-1));
} else {
userIndex = users.indexOf(partialMatch);
}
}
//Cycle through userlist from last user or beginning
for (var i=userIndex; i<users.length; i++) {
var user = users[i] || '';
//Search for match
if (window.partialMatch.length > 0 && user.search(window.partialMatch, "i") === 0) {
//If no match found we continue searching
if(user === partialMatch || user === partialMatch.substr(0, partialMatch.length-1)){
continue;
}
//If we find a match we return our match to our input
sentence.push(user);
//We decide whether or not to add colon
if (sentence.length === 1) {
$('#chat-input').val(sentence.join(' ') + ":");
} else {
$('#chat-input').val(sentence.join(' '));
}
//We break from our loop
break;
}
}

You may want to look into the trie data structure, which is excellently structured for exactly this problem. With a trie, you can list off all of the strings that start with a given prefix very efficiently and without having to look at all the words in the word list. You can also do other nice operations with the trie, such as fast lookups, fast successor and predecessor search, and fast insertion/deletion.
Hope this helps!