Develop Reference

Javascript create a mapping of array values

I am working on a project where I give a user the ability to create their own email templates and insert tags into them as placeholder values that will eventually replaced with content.
The tags are in the format of [FirstName] [LastName]
I am trying to figure out the best approach to create a function that maps these tags to their values.
For example (Psuedo code):
function convertTags(message){
// Convert all instances of tags within the message to their assigned value
'[FirstName]' = FirstNameVar,
'[LastName]' = LastNameVar
// Return the message with all tags replaced
return message;
}
I assume I could do something like the following:
function convertTags(message){
message = message.replace(/[FirstName]/g, FirstNameVar);
message = message.replace(/[LastName]/g, LastNameVar);
return message;
}
I am just trying to come up with a clean way to do this, preferably in an array/mapping style format that I can easily add to.
Any recommendations on achieving this?

You're on the right lines. You just need to generalise your REGEX to match all params, not specifically 'firstname' or some such other hard-coded value.
Let's assume the replacers live in an object, replacers.
var replacers = {
'foo': 'bar',
'something-else': 'foo'
};
And here's our template:
var tmplt = 'This is my template [foo] etc etc [something-else] - [bar]';
For the replacement, we need iterative replacement via a callback:
tmplt = tmplt.replace(/\[[^\}]+\]/g, function(param) { //match all "[something]"
param = param.replace(/\[|\]/g, ''); //strip off leading [ and trailing ]
return replacers[param] || '??'; //return replacer or, if none found, '??'
});
The value of tmplt is now
This is my template bar etc etc foo - ??

Let's say you have an object like this:
var tagMapper: {};
In this object you can add anything you want as key-value pairs, example:
function addTag(key, value){
key = "__prefix__" + key;
tagMapper[key] = value;
}
addTag("key1", "value1");
The difference between an object and an array in javascript is that one uses named indexes while the other uses numbered indexed to set and retrieve data.
Now every time your user adds a new tag, you just add a new key-value pair to this object by calling the addTag function, then to replace those keys in your template just loop over the object as such:
for (var key in tagMapper) {
if (tagMapper.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
template = template.replace(key, tagMapper[key]);
//key here has value "__prefix__key1" and maps to "value1" from our example
}
}
The prefix was added to ensure the script doesn't replace an undesirable string from our template. Your tag format may be sufficient if you are sure the template doesn't contain any [] tags containing the same key as one in the tagMapper object.

JavaScript Array Issue with data['sax']

I have a confusion of what this array can hold. Also, I want to know how it assigns the values to the variable set.
Can someone give me an example of data['sax'] please and explain me the loop below?
for(var x = 0; x < data['sax'].length; x++){
var set = data['sax'][x];
Then what does this mean ?
id : set.saxID,
name : set.symbol

What you have here is an array that is being looped through. data['sax'] will be something along the lines of the following:
var data = {
sax: [
{
saxID: 1,
symbol: 1
},
{
saxID: 2,
symbol: 2
}
]
}
As you can see in the example above, sax is an array which contains multiple objects. What happens when you loop over it, is that it accesses one of the objects inside the array. So data['sax'][0] will give you the object with saxID: 1.
Using the variable set to temporarily store the data in; you can access the data of data['sax'][0] as set. So data['sax'][0].saxID becomes set.saxID. It is somewhat of a shorthand version of accessing the data.
What happens with id: set.saxID, is that the values get assigned to a new object. Which will be something like the following.
var newSax = {
id: set.saxID
}
You are basically transferring data from one object to another.

Explaining the code
var set = data['sax'][x];
Here you are creating a variable called set and assigning it a value from data['sax'][x].
data['sax'] this might look like a array But Its Not, to access value of a array we use index but here its a string. This is another way of accessig a property value of a object. So data is a object with one of its property being sax. That means
data = {sax: somevalue};
Now we have,
data['sax'][x] So as you know data['sax'] is a object and then this [x] , here x is not a string its a variable and it holds the Number value (0,1,2,3...) , it means your data['sax'] value is a array since we are accessing from index.
So from the above analysis your data['sax'] will be in this format.
Array
data = { sax : ["someValue","someValue"]}
So variable set will be
var set = "someValue"; // if x = 0, as in the first loop
Now coming to the code
id : set.saxID,
name : set.symbol
set.saxID this is used if the set is an object. In Jquery to retrieve the value of a property in the object you use the . operator with property name (or by the property name as seen above). So the code means set is a object with two properties saxID and symbol. So your set object will be like
set = { saxID: 123, symbol = "TEST"}
That also means that your data value be
data = { sax : [{saxID: 123, symbol = "TEST"},{saxID: 123, symbol = "TEST"}]}
Let me know if I was clear

Javascript object/array manipulation

Struggling with some javascript array manipulation/updating. Hope someone could help.
I have an array:
array('saved_designs'=array());
Javascript JSON version:
{"saved_design":{}}
I will be adding a label, and associated array data:
array("saved_designs"=array('label'=array('class'='somecssclass',styles=array(ill add more assoc elements here),'hover'=array(ill add more assoc elements here))))
Javascript version:
{"saved_designs":{"label":{"class":"someclass","style":[],"hover":[]}}}
I want to be able to append/modify this array. If 'label' already defined...then cycle through the sub data for that element...and update. If 'label' doesnt exist..then append a new data set to the 'saved_designs' array element.
So, if label is not defined, add the following to the 'saved_designs' element:
array('label2' = array('class'=>'someclass2',styles=array(),'hover=>array()')
Things arent quite working out as i expect. Im unsure of the javascript notation of [], and {} and the differences.
Probably going to need to discuss this as answers are provided....but heres some code i have at the moment to achive this:
//saveLabel = label the user chose for this "design"
if(isUnique == 0){//update
//ask user if want to overwrite design styles for the specified html element
if (confirm("Their is already a design with that label ("+saveLabel+"). Overwrite this designs data for the given element/styles?")) {
currentDesigns["saved_designs"][saveLabel]["class"] = saveClass;
//edit other subdata here...
}
}else{//create new
var newDesign = [];
newDesign[saveLabel] = [];
newDesign[saveLabel]["class"] = saveClass;
newDesign[saveLabel]["style"] = [];
newDesign[saveLabel]["hover"] = [];
currentDesigns["saved_designs"].push(newDesign);//gives error..push is not defined
}
jQuery("#'.$elementId.'").val(JSON.stringify(currentDesigns));
thanks in advance. Hope this is clear. Ill update accordingly based on questions and comments.
Shaun

It can be a bit confusing. JavaScript objects look a lot like a map or a dictionary from other languages. You can iterate over them and access their properties with object['property_name'].
Thus the difference between a property and a string index doesn't really exist. That looks like php you are creating. It's called an array there, but the fact that you are identifying values by a string means it is going to be serialized into an object in javascript.
var thing = {"saved_designs":{"label":{"class":"someclass","style":[],"hover":[]}}}
thing.saved_designs.label is the same thing as thing["saved_designs"]["label"].
In javascript an array is a list that can only be accessed by integer indices. Arrays don't have explicit keys and can be defined:
var stuff = ['label', 24, anObject]
So you see the error you are getting about 'push not defined' is because you aren't working on an array as far as javascript is concerned.
currentDesigns["saved_designs"] == currentDesigns.saved_designs
When you have an object, and you want a new key/value pair (i.e. property) you don't need a special function to add. Just define the key and the value:
**currentDesigns.saved_designs['key'] = newDesign;**
If you have a different label for every design (which is what it looks like) key is that label (a string).
Also when you were defining the new design this is what javascript interprets:
var newDesign = [];
newDesign is an array. It has n number of elements accessed by integers indices.
newDesign[saveLabel] = [];
Since newDesign is a an array saveLabel should be an numerical index. The value for that index is another array.
newDesign[saveLabel]["class"] = saveClass;
newDesign[saveLabel]["style"] = [];
newDesign[saveLabel]["hover"] = [];
Here explicitly you show that you are trying to use an array as objects. Arrays do not support ['string_key']
This might very well 'work' but only because in javascript arrays are objects and there is no rule that says you can't add properties to objects at will. However all these [] are not helping you at all.
var newDesign = {label: "the label", class: saveClass};
is probably what you are looking for.

find and replace property value in json object using javascript/underscore.js

I have one list as follows
var data = [{id:1, name:'user1', img:'img1.jpg' },{id:2, 'user2', img:'img2.jpg' }]
Now I have to replace img property with new value (e.g. 'New_Image_2.jpg') for id=2 using underscore.js or in javascript using less effort. right now I have created one small function as follows.
var imgpath = 'New_Image_2.jpg';
var tmpdata = _.findWhere(data,{id:2});
if (tmpdata) {
tmpdata.img = imgpath;
}
Now, in above method, my problem is, How to marge new value with original data?

Well your code should already work because _.findWhere returns the first object corresponding to your constraint or undefined if it does not exist, it means that modifying tmpdata.img actually modifies the value you want to modify.

How do I scan JSON with jquery to determine the number of instances of a certain string?

I have some JSON which looks generally like this...
{"appJSON": [
{
"title":"Application Title",
"category":"Business",
"industry":"Retail",
"language":"English",
"tags":[
{"tags":"Sales"},{"tags":"Reporting"},{"tags":"Transportation"},{"tags":"Hospitality"}
],
},
{
"title":"Airline Quality Assurance",
...
...
...]}
I'm looping through JSON to get an array of all of the unique Tags in the data.
My question is, now that I have an array of the different unique Tags in the JSON, how do I best determine the number of times each Tag occurs?
So basically I'm looking to generate a list of all of the tags found in the JSON (which I already have) with the number of times each one occurs (which I don't already have).
Thanks a lot in advance!

I'm assuming when you find a new tag you check to see if you already have that tag somewhere. If you don't you add it to your list. Why not when you check do something like.
var nextTag=//get the next tag in the JSON list
var newTag=true;
for(var i=0;i<tags.length;i++){
if(nextTag === tags[i]){
tagCount[i]++;
newTag=false;
break;
}
}
if(newTag){
tags[tags.length]=nextTag;
tagCount[tagCount.length]=1;
}
This uses two arrays where tagCount[i] is the number of times tag in tags[i] occurs. You could uses an object to do this or however you wanted to.

As an alternative, here's a function which will fill an associative array; the keys will be the tags and the values will be the number of occurrences of that tag.
var tagCounts = []; // Global variable here, but could be an object property or any array you like really
function countTags(tags, tagCounts)
{
$.each(tags, function(i, item) {
var tag = item.tags; // This would change depending on the format of your JSON
if(tagCounts[tag] == undefined) // If there's not an index for this tag
tagCounts[tag] = 0;
tagCounts[tag]++;
});
}
So you can call this function on any number of arrays of tags, passing in your tagCounts (totals) array, and it will aggregate the totals.
var tags1 = [{"tags":"Sales"},{"tags":"Reporting"},{"tags":"Transportation"},{"tags":"Hospitality"}];
var tags2 = [{"tags":"Reporting"},{"tags":"Transportation"}];
var tags3 = [{"tags":"Reporting"},{"tags":"Hospitality"}];
countTags(tags1, tagCounts);
countTags(tags2, tagCounts);
countTags(tags3, tagCounts);
Then you can read them out like so:
for(var t in tagCounts)
// t will be the tag, tagCounts[t] will be the number of occurrences
Working example here: http://jsfiddle.net/UVUrJ/1/
qw3n's answer is actually a more efficient way of doing things, as you're only looping through all the tags once—but unless you have a really huge JSON source the difference isn't going to be noticeable.