Sorry if this is a dumb question, I'm a javascript noob
I'm trying to specify a list to find a random entry in. How can I do this without using if/else statements or switches?
var one = ["Japan","Vietnam","Korea"]
var two = ["bleghg","djakd","dasda"]
var three = ["woop","doop","loop"]
function randomItem (list) {
return list[Math.random()*list.length]
}Thanks in advance for the help!
To access a random position in the list, you need to generate a random number against the list length and then round it, like below. No condition testing required.
list[Math.floor(Math.random()*list.length)];
To use this with your code then you would call your function with one of your lists as a parameter. Like so:
console.log(randomItem(one));
Replace the list param in the function with the name of the list:
randomItem(one)
var one = ["Japan", "Vietnam", "Korea"]
var two = ["bleghg", "djakd", "dasda"]
var three = ["woop", "doop", "loop"]
function randomItem(list) {
// you need to round the random number down
return list[Math.floor(Math.random() * list.length, 10)];
}
var result = randomItem(one);
console.log(result);Since @Thomas Juranek has corrected your use of Math.random for you, I won't dwell into that. Instead, I will answer your question on retrieving variable using variable names.
I would call this a hack, but variables declared in global are bound to the window object. If you are passing variable name only, you can retrieve it by doing the following:
function getWindowObject(variableName) {
return window[variableName];
}
It definitely makes more sense to just pass the variable, however. A slightly better way to do this, if you insist on wanting to declare loosely hanging variables outside the function scope, would be to wrap it in an object:
var myPersonalScope = {};
myPersonalScope["one"] = [1, 2, 3];
myPersonalScope["two"] = [4, 5, 6];
function getPersonalScopeObject(variableName) {
return myPersonalScope[variableName];
}
