Javascript probs

can't get: 'if (array[x][y] < z) {...' to work

[Soupisgoodfood]

I'm writting a script to get the lowest value in a set of arrays. But it seems to be randomly picking a number instead of the lowest. If I change the value of 143 (data[4][3]) to something else (higher or lower), then it sometimes picks another number from one of the other arrays (one instance was data[2][0]).
I have absolutly no idea why this isn't working, it's just a basic equation.

Any ideas?

Thanks,
Justin.

THE CODE:
################

data = new Array(
new Array('156', '321', '67', '275'),
new Array('252', '56', '23', '300'),
new Array('400', '290', '321', '312'),
new Array('343', '210', '234', '390'),
new Array('332', '190', '143', '230')
);
findRangeMin(data);
function findRangeMin(arr) {
  if (typeof arr[0] == 'object') {
    var min = arr[0][0];
    for (var arrNum in arr) {
      for (var i in arr[arrNum]) {
        Response.write(arr[arrNum][i] + ' < ' + min +' ?');
        if (arr[arrNum][i] < min) { // <== The problem
          min = arr[arrNum][i]; 
          Response.write(' Yes<br>');
        }
        else { Response.write(' No<br>'); }
      }
    }
  } else { // <= This part works fine
    var min = arr[0];
    for (var i in arr) {
      if (arr[i] < min) {
        min = arr[i];
      }
    }
  }
}

################

THE RESULT:
################
156 < 156 ? No
321 < 156 ? No
67 < 156 ? No
275 < 156 ? No
252 < 156 ? No
56 < 156 ? No
23 < 156 ? No
300 < 156 ? No
400 < 156 ? No
290 < 156 ? No
321 < 156 ? No
312 < 156 ? No
343 < 156 ? No
210 < 156 ? No
234 < 156 ? No
390 < 156 ? No
332 < 156 ? No
190 < 156 ? No
143 < 156 ? Yes
230 < 143 ? No
################

[rewboss]

I've not looked very closely at your code, but one thing I can tell straight off is that you have probably fallen foul of JavaScript's loose typing. By this I mean that you don't have to declare variables as strings or integers or numbers or whatever; JavaScript performs automatic data conversion wherever necessary. But sometimes it can't always tell what you want.

For example, take this two statements:

result1 = 5 + 2; // Result is 7
result2 = 'foo' + 'bar'; // Result is 'foobar'

The numbers are added, but the strings are concatenated.

Now consider:

result3 = '$' + 5.25; // Result is '$5.25'

Here, JavaScript performs automatic data conversion. Because '$' is a string, it has to convert the number 5.25 into a string and concatenate it.

Compare this with:

result4 = '6' * 2; // Result is 12

Because * doesn't work on strings (you can't multiply a string!), JavaScript converts the string '6' into a number and multiplies it by two.

But what about this?

result5 = '3' + 5; // Result is...?

Intuitively, you might think that the result would be 8, especially if '3' were a variable (result5=x+5). But in fact it's not; JavaScript converts 5 to a string and concatenates the two strings to produce the result '35', not 8.

This also happens with < and >. They can be used to compare numbers or strings. For example:

result6 = 5 < 2; // Result is false
result7 = 'aardvark' < 'zoo'; // Result is true

Strings are compared alphabetically, based on ASCII coding.

So consider this:

result8 = '11' < '2'; // Result is true!

The result is true, not false, because JavaScript is comparing strings, not numbers. '1' comes before '2' in the ASCII character set.

If you look at your code, you'll find that you've assigned all your data as strings. Remove the quotation marks from around the numbers, and that should do the trick.

Just to make absolutely sure, though, you might want to force JavaScript to convert to the appropriate data type. There is no equivalent of type casting (as in Java or C++), but there is a very simple trick.

To convert strings to numbers, subtract zero:

result9 = '11' - 0; // Result is the number 11

And to convert numbers to strings, add the empty string:

result10 = 11 + ''; // Result is the string '11'

This exposes as a misconception the idea that JavaScript is "easier" than Java. There's a lot going on "behind the scenes" in JavaScript, and it can really mess up your scripts; in Java, you have total control.

[Soupisgoodfood]

Ah... Thanks. I'm used to PHP, strings are joined with a '.' so I've never had to be aware of quotes before. I pressume that I'll be running into the same problem when I start to deal with data from forms etc? (I'm using ASP/JavaScript).

[rewboss]

Yes, that's one of the biggest sources of errors when using JavaScript with forms.

[DrDoc]

As for a solution to the problem .. simply don't put the numbers within single quotes in the Arrays. That will solve it, and force the browser to read them as numbers :)