So I am trying to create a function that searches through an array based on a searchTerm. If the elements within the array have the searchTerm in it, it should output ALL of indexes inside of MyArray[];.
I hope I have explained clearly, thanks in advance.
Here's a corrected version:
var colours = ["I like the colour red", "I hate the colour yellow", "I love the colour blue"];
function myFunction(colours, searchTerm) {
var myArray = [];
searchTerm = searchTerm.toLowerCase();
for (var i = 0; i < colours.length; i++) {
if (colours[i].toLowerCase().indexOf(searchTerm) >= 0) {
myArray.push(i);
}
}
return myArray;
}
alert(myFunction(colours,"colour")) //Should return indexes 0,1,2 in myArray
And a working demo here: http://jsfiddle.net/jfriend00/GDM9R/.
I had to fix a lot of issues:
You weren't adding results to myArray properly.
You weren't adding the index to myArray.
You weren't testing the results of .indexOf() properly (it returns -1 when no match).
You were iterating over the length of the search phrase, not the number of items in the array.
You didn't declare i as a local variable so it was an implicit global variable.
myArray = colours[i] does not append to the array.
myArray.push(a);
Related
this will random my numPool and push the random three numbers to my array called pickNum. I need that pickeNum to be just one index instead of three indexes. Thanks and i will appreciate any help thanks.
var numPool:Array = [1,2,3];
var pickNum:Array = [];
var randomCount:Number = 3;
var r:Number;
for (var i = 0; i < randomCount; i++)
{
r = Math.floor(Math.random() * numPool.length);
pickNum[pickNum.length] = numPool.splice(r,1);
}
trace("Number Picked " + pickNum);
Can't say I completely understand what you are saying, but the issue with the code above is that splice returns an Array containing the values that were spliced from the array. Also, would be easiest to just do a push. So the proper line for getting that value and pushing it into the pickNum array would be :
pickNum.push(numPool.splice(r,1).pop());
And if you are saying that you want only 1 random number from the pool, then why do you need a loop ?
I want to remove the first four indexes from the array using splice(), then rebuild the array starting at index 0. How do I do this?
Array.index[0] = 'one';
Array.index[1] = 'two';
Array.index[2] = 'three';
Array.index[3] = 'four';
Array.index[4] = 'five';
Array.index[5] = 'six';
Array.index[6] = 'seven';
Array.index[7] = 'eight';
Array.splice(0, 4);
Array.index[0] = 'five';
Array.index[1] = 'six';
Array.index[2] = 'seven';
Array.index[3] = 'eight';
I am accessing the array via a timer, on each iteration I want to remove the first four indexes of the array. I assumed splice() would remove the indexes then rebuild the array starting at 0 index. it doesn't, so instead what I have done is created a 'deleteIndex' variable, on each iteration a +4 is added to deleteIndex.
var deleteIndex:int = 4;
function updateTimer(event:TimerEvent):void
{
Array.splice(0,deleteIndex);
deleteIndex = deleteIndex + 4;
}
What type of object is "Array" in the code you have shown? The Flash Array object does not have a property named "index". The Array class is dynamic, which means that it let's you add random properties to it at run time (which seems to be what you are doing).
In any case, if you are using the standard Flash Array class, it's splice() method updates the array indexes automatically. Here is a code example that proves it:
var a:Array = [1,2,3,4,5];
trace("third element: ", a[2]); // output: 3
a.splice(2,1); // delete 3rd element
trace(a); // output: 1,2,4,5
trace(a.length); // ouput: 4
trace("third element: ", a[2]); // output: 4
If I am understanding what you want correctly, you need to use the unshift method of Array.
example :
var someArray:Array = new Array(0,1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8);
someArray.splice(0,4);
somearray.unshift(5,6,7,8);
Also, you are using the Array Class improperly, you need to create an instance of an array to work with first.
The question is confusing because you used Array class name instead of an instance of an array. But as the commenter on this post said, if you splice elements, it automatically re-indexes.
im not sure what you want to do, but Array=Array.splice(0,4) should fix somethin..
I have got an array that consists of strings. I have made a function that searches the array based on the search term parameter. However, when i run the code it only ever outputs the string at index 0 of the array. I want it to return the corresponding url in the array when a search is run.
Any help would be very much appreciated. Thanks in advance.
So you are trying to return URL based on the String after the ~?
Do the line
arrayOfURL[i].toLowerCase().split('~')[i];
seem weird to you? Imagine as i increases, eg. i = 4
arrayOfURL[4].toLowerCase().split('~')[4];
Does that last [4] make sense?
I am guessing the reason it never got past the first element is because the code actually erroring out on that part.
I think what you want is (likewise for the return line, you'll want [0]
arrayOfURL[i].toLowerCase().split('~')[1];
I would also take a look at
if (z >= searchtoLower)
what are you trying to compare there?
The problem may be in the second i param:
var z = arrayOfURL[i].toLowerCase().split('~')[i];
The string will be splitted into 2 parts (index 0, 1). Why did you select part i?
This is a correct version of your program:
var arrayOfURL = [
"http://www.google.co.uk~Google is a search engine.",
"http://www.yahoo.co.uk~Yahoo is another search engine.",
"http://bing.com~Bing is a decision engine."
];
function findURL(arrayOfURL,search)
{
var searchtoLower = search.toLowerCase();
for (var i = 0; i < arrayOfURL.length; i++)
{
var z = arrayOfURL[i].toLowerCase().split('~')[1];
if (z.indexOf(searchtoLower) != -1)
return arrayOfURL[i];
}
return "Nothing Found!";
}
findURL(arrayOfURL,"decision")
I hope it can help you.
I think you should be doing
var terms = arrayOfURL[i].toLowerCase().split('~');
if(0 <= terms[1].indexOf(searchToLower))
// ^ ^
// | |-- 0 <= indexOf method determines
// | if searchToLower is a substring of terms[1]
// |
// |-- term[1] gets the part after the first "~"
and
return terms[0]; //terms[0] is the part before the first "~"
I would also consider returning null or the empty string "" in case of failure (instead of returning the arbritrary "Nothing Found!" message)
I was trying to make a similar thing with the game SameGame (ie. the block above the removed blocks fall downward). Before trying this with an Array that contains MovieClips, this code worked (tried it with int values). With MovieClips on the array, it seems not working the same way.
With int values, example:
popUp(0, 4): Before: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10; After: 1,2,3,4,6,7,8,9,10
But with MovieClips:
popUp(0, 4): Before: 1,2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10; After; 1,2,3,4
// Assume the numbers are movieclips XD
Basically, it strips everything else, rather than just the said block >_<
Here's the whole method. Basically, two extra arrays juggle the values above the soon-to-be removed value, remove the value, then re-stack it to the original array.
What could be wrong with this? And am I doing the right thing for what I really wanted to emulate?
function popUp(col:uint, row:uint)
{
var tempStack:Array = new Array();
var extraStack:Array = new Array();
tempStack = IndexArray[col];
removeChild(tempStack[0]);
for(var ctr:uint = tempStack.length-(row+1); ctr > 0; ctr--)
{
removeChild(tempStack[ctr]);
extraStack.push(tempStack.pop());
trace(extraStack);
}
tempStack.pop();
for(ctr = extraStack.length; ctr > 0; ctr--)
{
tempStack.push(extraStack.pop());
//addChild(tempStack[ctr]);
}
IndexArray[col] = tempStack;
}
PS: If it's not too much to ask, are there free step-by-step guides on making a SameGame in AS3 (I fear I might not be doing things right)? Thanks in advance =)
I think you just want to remove an element and have everything after that index shift down a place to fill what you removed. There's an inbuilt function for this called splice(start:uint, length:uint);
Parameters:
start - the index to start removing elements from
length - the amount of elements to remove
var ar:Array = ["hello","there","sir"];
ar.splice(1, 1);
ar is now -> ["hello", "sir"];
As per question:
Here's an example with different types of elements:
var ar:Array = [new MovieClip(), "some string", new Sprite(), 8];
ar.splice(2, 1);
trace(ar); // [object MovieClip], some string, 8
And further example to display the indexes being changed:
trace(ar[2]); // was [object Sprite], is now 8
So I have a list of words (the entire English dictionary).
For a word matching game, when a player moves a piece I need to check the entire dictionary to see if the the word that the player made exists in the dictionary. I need to do this as quickly as possible. simply iterating through the dictionary is way too slow.
What is the quickest algorithm in AS3 to search a long list like this for a match, and what datatype should I use? (ie array, object, Dictionary etc)
I would first go with an Object, which is a hash table (at least, storage-wise).
So, for every word in your list, make an entry in your dictionary Object and store true as its value.
Then, you just have to check if a given word is a key into your dictionary to know whether the word the user has choosen is valid or not.
This works really fast in this simple test (with 10,000,000 entries):
var dict:Object = {};
for(var i:int = 0; i < 10000000; i++) {
dict[i] = true;
}
var btn:Sprite = new Sprite();
btn.graphics.beginFill(0xff0000);
btn.graphics.drawRect(0,0,50,50);
btn.graphics.endFill();
addChild(btn);
btn.addEventListener(MouseEvent.CLICK,checkWord);
var findIt:Boolean = true;
function checkWord(e:MouseEvent):void {
var word:String;
if(findIt) {
word = "3752132";
} else {
word = "9123012456";
}
if(dict[word]) {
trace(word + " found");
} else {
trace(word + " not found");
}
findIt = !findIt;
}
It takes a little longer to build the dictionary, but lookup is almost instantaneous.
The only caveat is that you will have to consider certain keys that will pass the check and not necessarily be part of your words list. Words such as toString, prototype, etc. There are just a few of them, but keep that in mind.
I would try something like this with your real data set. If it works fine, then you have a really easy solution. Go have a beer (or whatever you prefer).
Now, if the above doesn't really work after testing it with real data (notice I've build the list with numbers cast as strings for simplicity), then a couple of options, off the top of my head:
1) Partition the first dict into a set of dictionaries. So, instead of having all the words in dict, have a dictionary for words that begin with 'a', another for 'b', etc. Then, before looking up a word, check the first char to know where to look it up.
Something like:
var word:String = "hello";
var dictKey:String = word.charAt(0);
// actual check
if(dict[dictKey][word]) {
trace("found");
} else {
trace("not found");
}
You can eventually repartition if necessary. I.e, make dict['a'] point to another set of dictionaries indexed by the first two characters. So, you'll have dict['a']['b'][wordToSearch]. There are a number of possible variations on this idea (you'd also have to come up with some strategy to cope with words of two letters, such as "be", for instance).
2) Try a binary search. The problem with it is that you'll first have to sort the list, upfront. You have to do it just once, as it doesn't make sense to remove words from your dict. But with millions of words, it might be rarther intensive.
3) Try some fancy data structures from open source libraries such as:
http://sibirjak.com/blog/index.php/collections/as3commons-collections/
http://lab.polygonal.de/ds/
But again, as I said above, I'd first try the easiest and simpler solution and check if it works against the real data set.
Added
A simple way to deal with keywords used for Object's built-in properties:
var dict:Object = {};
var keywordsInDict:Array = [];
function buildDictionary():void {
// let's assume this is your original list, retrieved
// from XML or other external means
// it contains "constructor", which should be dealt with
// separately, as it's a built-in prop of Object
var sourceList:Array = ["hello","world","foo","bar","constructor"];
var len:int = sourceList.length;
var word:String;
// just a dummy vanilla object, to test if a word in the list
// is already in use internally by Object
var dummy:Object = {};
for(var i:int = 0; i < len; i++) {
// also, lower-casing is a good idea
// do that when you check words as well
word = sourceList[i].toLowerCase();
if(!dummy[word]) {
dict[i] = true;
} else {
// it's a keyword, so store it separately
keywordsInDict.push(word);
}
}
}
Now, just add an extra check for built-in props in the checkWords function:
function checkWord(e:MouseEvent):void {
var word:String;
if(findIt) {
word = "Constructor";
} else {
word = "asdfds";
}
word = word.toLowerCase();
var dummy:Object = {};
// check first if the word is a built-in prop
if(dummy[word]) {
// if it is, check if that word was in the original list
// if it was present, we've stored it in keywordsInDict
if(keywordsInDict.indexOf(word) != -1) {
trace(word + " found");
} else {
trace(word + " not found");
}
// not a built-in prop, so just check if it's present in dict
} else {
if(dict[word]) {
trace(word + " found");
} else {
trace(word + " not found");
}
}
findIt = !findIt;
}
This isn't specific to ActionScript, but a Trie is a suitable data structure for storing words.