Creating an array dynamically in JavaScript - javascript

OK, so I am attempting to write some code that will take x number of classrooms and x number of students per classroom and then pair two students together randomly from separate classrooms.
Sounds Simple, right!
I have already been able to create x number of input elements dynamically on the page and all works up until I try to create the array for the x number of elements.
Is there a different approach I should Try?
I got my code working up til this point:
for (i = 0; i < classSize; i++) {
var arrField = container2.appendChild(document.createElement('fieldset'));
var arrDiv = arrField.appendChild(document.createElement('div'));
arrDiv.id = "div" + (i + 1);
var studentArr = "studentArr" + (i + 1);
alert(studentArr); //returns "studentArr1" "studentArr2", etc.
for (n = 0; n < arrSize; n++) {
studentArr = new student();
studentArr[(n + 1)] = new student(document.getElementById("name" + (n + 1)).value, document.getElementById("email" + (n + 1)).value, document.getElementById("phone" + (n + 1)).value);
alert(studentArr[(n + 1)].name);
alert(studentArr[(n + 1)].email);
alert(studentArr[(n + 1)].phone);
}
}
FYI- I am very new to JavaScript and programming in general!- Sorry

Have you defined the student object constructor elsewhere? As it stands, student() looks like it's standing in for both an array and an object with attributes like name, email, etc. You should use something along the lines of
studentArray = []
studentArray.push(new student(name,email,etc.))
in order to prevent overloading the student class.
Also, on a separate note, you shouldn't use alerts unless you literally would say, "Alert!" They are problematic for at least three reasons:
1) They're really annoying
2) alert(object) will display something like [Object Object] for anything more complicated than a simple data structure like a string
3) They prevent anything else from running on the page.
You're better off using console.log, which writes information to the JavaScript Console. Different browsers implement the console in different places, but in Chrome, the console is in View -> Developer -> JavaScript Console. console.log is less obtrusive and allows you to inspect objects much more thoroughly than alert does.

Use :
array.push();
Example :
// initialize array
var arr = [
"Hi",
"Hello",
"Bonjour"
];
// append new value to the array
arr.push("Hola");
// display all values
for (var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {
alert(arr[i]);
}

Related

String control in loops

I have a big question.
I have many Strings in my Programm and want to check these Strings on there values.
I wrote a Loop for it, but insted of the Definition of an String he is creating a new value. It's basicly really difficult to discribe, also because i am basicly German.
But i can give you my current code, so maybee you will see what I mean:
{
var Loch1G = $('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Datum').val(); //In the strings just the number is changing
var Loch2G = $('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Turnier').val();
x=1
while (x <= 2) {
if ("Loch" + x + "G" == ""){ //Next String is genrated (x=x+1)
alert("Eingabe war leer");
}
x=x+1
}
}
How can I solve this?
I'd suggest using an array to store the values you want to check:
var lochs = [];
lochs.push($('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Datum').val());
lochs.push($('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Turnier').val());
for (var i = 0, len = lochs.length; i < len; i++){
if (lochs[i] == ''){
alert("Eingabe war leer");
}
}
JS Fiddle demos: passes (no alert), fails (alert)
This suggestion is based on my presumption that you're trying to create the names of the vars you want to check, which won't work, whereas this approach lets you store all values (however many) in the same array and then iterate over that array to find any values that are equal to an empty string.
If you really want to stick with your current approach, you could do the following:
{
window.Loch1G = $('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Datum').val(); //In the strings just the number is changing
window.Loch2G = $('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Turnier').val();
var x=1;
while (x <= 2) {
if (window["Loch" + x + "G"] == ""){ //Next String is genrated (x=x+1)
alert("Eingabe war leer");
}
x=x+1;
}
}
But I can't think why you'd want to; plus the use of global variables is poor practice as it explicitly makes those variables available to every closure within the document, which allows them to be easily, and accidentally, overwritten.
In a reasonably up-to-date browser, that implements Array.prototype.every, you could dispense with the explicit iteration:
var lochs = [];
lochs.push($('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Datum').val());
lochs.push($('#m1-Rundenanalyse-Turnier').val());
if (!lochs.every(function(a){ return a !== ''; })) {
alert("Eingabe war leer");
}
JS Fiddle demos: passes (no alert), fails (alerts).

Can I select 2nd element of a 2 dimensional array by value of the first element in Javascript?

I have a JSON response like this:
var errorLog = "[[\"comp\",\"Please add company name!\"],
[\"zip\",\"Please add zip code!\"],
...
Which I'm deserializing like this:
var log = jQuery.parseJSON(errorLog);
Now I can access elements like this:
log[1][1] > "Please add company name"
Question:
If I have the first value comp, is there a way to directly get the 2nd value by doing:
log[comp][1]
without looping through the whole array.
Thanks for help!
No. Unless the 'value' of the first array (maybe I should say, the first dimension, or the first row), is also it's key. That is, unless it is something like this:
log = {
'comp': 'Please add a company name'
.
.
.
}
Now, log['comp'] or log.comp is legal.
There are two was to do this, but neither avoids a loop. The first is to loop through the array each time you access the items:
var val = '';
for (var i = 0; i < errorLog.length; i++) {
if (errorLog[i][0] === "comp") {
val = errorLog[i][1];
break;
}
}
The other would be to work your array into an object and access it with object notation.
var errors = {};
for (var i = 0; i < errorLog.length; i++) {
errors[errorLog[i][0]] = errorLog[i][1];
}
You could then access the relevant value with errors.comp.
If you're only looking once, the first option is probably better. If you may look more than once, it's probably best to use the second system since (a) you only need to do the loop once, which is more efficient, (b) you don't repeat yourself with the looping code, (c) it's immediately obvious what you're trying to do.
No matter what you are going to loop through the array somehow even it is obscured for you a bit by tools like jQuery.
You could create an object from the array as has been suggested like this:
var objLookup = function(arr, search) {
var o = {}, i, l, first, second;
for (i=0, l=arr.length; i<l; i++) {
first = arr[i][0]; // These variables are for convenience and readability.
second = arr[i][1]; // The function could be rewritten without them.
o[first] = second;
}
return o[search];
}
But the faster solution would be to just loop through the array and return the value as soon as it is found:
var indexLookup = function(arr, search){
var index = -1, i, l;
for (i = 0, l = arr.length; i<l; i++) {
if (arr[i][0] === search) return arr[i][1];
}
return undefined;
}
You could then just use these functions like this in your code so that you don't have to have the looping in the middle of all your code:
var log = [
["comp","Please add company name!"],
["zip","Please add zip code!"]
];
objLookup(log, "zip"); // Please add zip code!
indexLookup(log, "comp"); // Please add company name!
Here is a jsfiddle that shows these in use.
Have you looked at jQuery's grep or inArray method?
See this discussion
Are there any jquery features to query multi-dimensional arrays in a similar fashion to the DOM?

Initializing JavaScript array based on user input

I have an applet that allows the user to define values for 10 variables, all of which could be arrays. I then want the program to iterate over all possible combinations and then save the calculations to a variable.
Previously I hard-coded it to initialize the result array, SIGMA, by looping over every variable, regardless of if it is a vector or a single value, IE:
SIGMA = new Array(A.length);
for (i1=0; i1<A.length; i1++) {
SIGMA[i1] = new Array(B.length);
for (i2=0; i2<B.length; i2++) {
SIGMA[i1][i2] = new Array(C.length);
for (i3=0; i3<C.length; i3++) {
...
}
}
}
This results in a 10-dimensional SIGMA array, which makes processing really slow if a few or more variables are arrays.
What I'd like to do is to have it initialize SIGMA only for those variables that are an array and not a singular value. Therefore, if all variables are a single number except for two, say X and Y, then I'd want to have:
SIGMA = new Array(X.length);
for (i1=0; i1<X.length; i1++) {
SIGMA[i1] = new Array(Y.length);
}
However, I'm not quite sure how the best way to do this would be, as the number of for loops would depend on the number of variables that are arrays. I'm thinking I either need to use a recursive function or somehow incorporate a while loop.
Anybody have any good ideas on how this can be done? Thanks!
I was able to solve this problem by making a recursive function that included the for loops:
sigma = new Array(eval(var_idx[0]).length);
sigma_forloop('sigma', 0)
function sigma_forloop(X, idx) {
for (var i=0; i<eval(var_idx[idx]).length; i++) {
eval(X + '[' + i + ']' + ' = new Array(eval(var_idx[idx+1]).length);')
if (idx+2 < var_idx.length) {
var Y = X + '[' + i + ']';
sigma_forloop(Y, idx+1);
}
}
}
The variable 'var_idx' in an array of strings containing the variables that have more than one value, therefore, it's those variables that I want to loop over.
I'm sure there's an easier way of doing it, but this works for now.

JavaScript array.sort() Issue

drafting up a quick listing tool to list local kids baseball teams. Takes a couple of inputs and writes to a text field. There's some validation and whatnot too, but that's out of scope and doesn't seem to be impacting things.
Problem is, I'm having trouble figuring out how to "capture" the existing text, add the new inputs and sort the whole lot, before writing the new result to the paragraph element (effectively replacing it).
So far I have:
var LeagueTeams = [];
var IndividualTeam = '';
LeagueTeams.push(document.forms[0].TeamName.value);
LeagueTeams.push(document.getElementById('TeamList')
LeagueTeams = LeagueTeams.sort();
for (j = 0; j < LeagueTeams.length; j++) {
IndividualTeam = LeagueTeams.pop();
IndividualTeam = IndividualTeam + '' + \n;
document.forms[0].TeamName.value += IndividualTeam;
}
What I end up getting is my input, and then an array of my input PLUS the previous contents, with a couple of line breaks. Setting the operator to = instead of =+ stops it from printing to the array at all.
i.e.
Enter: a
Text area: a
Then enter: b
Text area: a ab
(etc)
OK, now that we have a better idea of what you're trying to do, here's some code that will do that:
HTML:
<label>Enter Team Name: <input id="newTeam" type="text"></label>
<button id="add">Add</button><br>
All Teams:<br>
<textarea id="allTeams" rows="40" cols="40"></textarea>
Javascript (plain javascript, no framework, called after page is loaded):
var teamList = ["Dodgers", "Mets", "Giants"];
document.getElementById("add").onclick = function() {
var input = document.getElementById("newTeam");
if (input.value) {
teamList.push(input.value);
}
updateTeamList();
input.value = "";
}
function updateTeamList() {
teamList.sort();
var o = document.getElementById("allTeams");
o.value = teamList.join("\n");
}
updateTeamList();
And, you can see it working here: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/HkhsL/
Comments on your existing code:
I'm not sure I understand what you're trying to do overall, but do you realize that this loop is going to have problems:
for (j = 0; j < LeagueTeams.length; j++) {
IndividualTeam = LeagueTeams.pop();
IndividualTeam = IndividualTeam + '' + \n;
document.forms[0].TeamName.value += IndividualTeam;
}
Each time you do LeagueTeams.pop() you are reducing the length of the array and you're continually comparing to LeagueTeams.length in the for loop. This will only get half way through the array because each time through the loop, you increment j and decrement LeagueTeams.length which means you'll only get half way through the array.
If you intend to iterate all the way through the array in your for loop, you should use this version that gets the length once initially and simplifies the code in the loop:
for (j = 0, len = LeagueTeams.length; j < len; j++) {
document.forms[0].TeamName.value += LeagueTeams.pop() + '\n';
}
or perhaps even better, this version that doesn't even use j:
while (LeagueTeams.length > 0) {
document.forms[0].TeamName.value += LeagueTeams.pop() + '\n';
}
Then further, I see that you're trying to use LeagueTeams.sort() on an array that has both strings in it and DOM object references. What are you trying to do with that sort because the built-in sort function does a lexigraphical sort (e.g. alpha) which will do something odd with a DOM reference (probably sort by whatever toString() returns which may be object type)?
If you want to sort the input by team name, then you would need to put both team name and the DOM reference into an object, insert that object into the array as one unit and then use a custom sort function that would sort by the name in the object. As your code is written above, you see to be using document.getElementById('TeamList') which is the same for all teams so I'm not sure why you're putting it into the array at all.
If you can show your HTML and a more complete version of your code, we could help further. What you have above is just a non-working piece of code and we don't know what your HTML looks like that it's trying to operate on.
FYI, there are several syntax errors in the code you posted, so this can't be running code:
Missing paren at the end of this: LeagueTeams.push(document.getElementById('TeamList'))
Missing quotes around \n: IndividualTeam = IndividualTeam + '' + '\n';
If you are just trying to make a list of the teams, try something like:
<script type="text/javascript">
function addTeam(form) {
var para = document.getElementById('teamList');
var teams = para.innerHTML.split(/<br\s*[\\]?>/);
teams.push(form.teamName.value);
para.innerHTML = teams.sort().join('<br>');
}
</script>
<form action="">
<input type="text" name="teamName">
<input type="button" value="Add team" onclick="addTeam(this.form)">
</form>
<p id="teamList"></p>
You may be using different elements or layout, but the strategy should be about the same. If you are making a set of options for a select, things are a little easier.

alternatives for excessive for() looping in javascript

Situation
I'm currently writing a javascript widget that displays a random quote into a html element. the quotes are stored in a javascript array as well as how many times they've been displayed into the html element. A quote to be displayed cannot be the same quote as was previously displayed. Furthermore the chance for a quote to be selected is based on it's previous occurences in the html element. ( less occurrences should result in a higher chance compared to the other quotes to be selected for display.
Current solution
I've currently made it work ( with my severely lacking javascript knowledge ) by using a lot of looping through various arrays. while this currently works ( !! ) I find this solution rather expensive for what I want to achieve.
What I'm looking for
Alternative methods of removing an array element from an array, currently looping through the entire array to find the element I want removed and copy all other elements into a new array
Alternative method of calculating and selecting a element from an array based on it's occurence
Anything else you notice I should / could do different while still enforcing the stated business rules under Situation
The Code
var quoteElement = $("div#Quotes > q"),
quotes = [[" AAAAAAAAAAAA ", 1],
[" BBBBBBBBBBBB ", 1],
[" CCCCCCCCCCCC ", 1],
[" DDDDDDDDDDDD ", 1]],
fadeTimer = 600,
displayNewQuote = function () {
var currentQuote = quoteElement.text();
var eligibleQuotes = new Array();
var exclusionFound = false;
for (var i = 0; i < quotes.length; i++) {
var iteratedQuote = quotes[i];
if (exclusionFound === false) {
if (currentQuote == iteratedQuote[0].toString())
exclusionFound = true;
else
eligibleQuotes.push(iteratedQuote);
} else
eligibleQuotes.push(iteratedQuote);
}
eligibleQuotes.sort( function (current, next) {
return current[1] - next[1];
} );
var calculatePoint = eligibleQuotes[0][1];
var occurenceRelation = new Array();
var relationSum = 0;
for (var i = 0; i < eligibleQuotes.length; i++) {
if (i == 0)
occurenceRelation[i] = 1 / ((calculatePoint / calculatePoint) + (calculatePoint / eligibleQuotes[i+1][1]));
else
occurenceRelation[i] = occurenceRelation[0] * (calculatePoint / eligibleQuotes[i][1]);
relationSum = relationSum + (occurenceRelation[i] * 100);
}
var generatedNumber = Math.floor(relationSum * Math.random());
var newQuote;
for (var i = 0; i < occurenceRelation.length; i++) {
if (occurenceRelation[i] <= generatedNumber) {
newQuote = eligibleQuotes[i][0].toString();
i = occurenceRelation.length;
}
}
for (var i = 0; i < quotes.length; i++) {
var iteratedQuote = quotes[i][0].toString();
if (iteratedQuote == newQuote) {
quotes[i][1]++;
i = quotes.length;
}
}
quoteElement.stop(true, true)
.fadeOut(fadeTimer);
setTimeout( function () {
quoteElement.html(newQuote)
.fadeIn(fadeTimer);
}, fadeTimer);
}
if (quotes.length > 1)
setInterval(displayNewQuote, 10000);
Alternatives considered
Always chose the array element with the lowest occurence.
Decided against this as this would / could possibly reveal a too obvious pattern in the animation
combine several for loops to reduce the workload
Decided against this as this would make the code to esoteric, I'd probably wouldn't understand the code anymore next week
jsFiddle reference
http://jsfiddle.net/P5rk3/
Update
Rewrote my function with the techniques mentioned, while I fear that these techniques still loop through the entire array to find it's requirements, at least my code looks cleaner : )
References used after reading the answers here:
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/javascript/array_map.htm
http://www.tutorialspoint.com/javascript/array_filter.htm
http://api.jquery.com/jQuery.each/
I suggest array functions that are mostly supported (and easily added if not):
[].splice(index, howManyToDelete); // you can alternatively add extra parameters to slot into the place of deletion
[].indexOf(elementToSearchFor);
[].filter(function(){});
Other useful functions include forEach and map.
I agree that combining all the work into one giant loop is ugly (and not always possible), and you gain little by doing it, so readability is definitely the winner. Although you shouldn't need too many loops with these array functions.
The answer that you want:
Create an integer array that stores the number of uses of every quote. Also, a global variable Tot with the total number of quotes already used (i.e., the sum of that integer array). Find also Mean, as Tot / number of quotes.
Chose a random number between 0 and Tot - 1.
For each quote, add Mean * 2 - the number of uses(*1). When you get that that value has exceeded the random number generated, select that quote.
In case that quote is the one currently displayed, either select the next or the previous quote or just repeat the process.
The real answer:
Use a random quote, at the very maximum repeat if the quote is duplicated. The data usages are going to be lost when the user reloads/leaves the page. And, no matter how cleverly have you chosen them, most users do not care.
(*1) Check for limits, i.e. that the first or last quota will be eligible with this formula.
Alternative methods of removing an array element from an array
With ES5's Array.filter() method:
Array.prototype.without = function(v) {
return this.filter(function(x) {
return v !== x;
});
};
given an array a, a.without(v) will return a copy of a without the element v in it.
less occurrences should result in a higher chance compared to the other quotes to be selected for display
You shouldn't mess with chance - as my mathematician other-half says, "chance doesn't have a memory".
What you're suggesting is akin to the idea that numbers in the lottery that haven't come up yet must be "overdue" and therefore more likely to appear. It simply isn't true.
You can write functions that explicitly define what you're trying to do with the loop.
Your first loop is a filter.
Your second loop is a map + some side effect.
I don't know about the other loops, they're weird :P
A filter is something like:
function filter(array, condition) {
var i = 0, new_array = [];
for (; i < array.length; i += 1) {
if (condition(array[i], i)) {
new_array.push(array[i]);
}
}
return new_array;
}
var numbers = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9];
var even_numbers = filter(numbers, function (number, index) {
return number % 2 === 0;
});
alert(even_numbers); // [2,4,6,8]
You can't avoid the loop, but you can add more semantics to the code by making a function that explains what you're doing.
If, for some reason, you are not comfortable with splice or filter methods, there is a nice (outdated, but still working) method by John Resig: http://ejohn.org/blog/javascript-array-remove/

Categories