Here's my solution to part 1 of the extra credit. (Printing a student not found message to the screen)

Question

FYI I always declare my functions first and then my variables. Even if the function is using a variable that isn't declared until later on in the code it still works properly because of hoisting and because of how the browsers' javascript interpreter parses a javascript document.

All this you already know, but I'll add anyway for reference:

function print(message){
  var div = document.getElementById("write");
  div.innerHTML = message;
}

function studentRecords(student){
  html = "<h2> Student: " + student.name + "</h2>";
  html += "<p> Track: " + student.track + "</p>";
  html += "<p> Achievements: " + student.achievements + "</p>";
  html += "<p> Points: " + student.points + "</p>";
  return html;
}

var students = [
  {
    name: "Tom",
    track: "iOS Development",
    achievements: 43,
    points: 73839
  },
  {
    name: "Jerry",
    track: "Web Design",
    achievements: 23,
    points: 89498
  },
  {
    name: "Sam",
    track: "Front End Development",
    achievements: 86,
    points: 23187
  },
  {
    name: "Kim",
    track: "Back End Development",
    achievements: 24,
    points: 90594
  },
  {
    name: "Jane",
    track: "Java Development",
    achievements: 73,
    points: 87328
  }
];

var search;
var html = "";

Here's my solution:

// I first created an empty array to store the student names
var studentNames = [];

while(true){
  search = prompt("Enter a Students Name: [or 'x' to quit]");
  if (search === null || search.toLowerCase() === "x") {
    break;
  }
// I initially loop through the students array and push all the names to my studentNames array
  for (var i = 0; i < students.length; i++) {
    studentNames.push(students[i].name.toLowerCase());
  }
// Now I use the name collected from the search prompt to check against the index number
// in the studentNames array using the .indexOf() method
  if (studentNames.indexOf(search.toLowerCase()) > -1) {
// If the name exists in the studentNames array then send that as the argument for the studentRecords function
    html += studentRecords(students[studentNames.indexOf(search)]); //studentNames.indexOf(search) returns a number. Which can be used as the index in students[#]
    print(html);
  } else {
// If the name isn't found then print this line to the screen
    print("<h2>" + search + " not found</h2>");
  }
// Because of the browsers quirk about leaving the prompt on the screen and not displaying
// the results until after you exit the prompt, I added a break after every search query
  break;
}

Here's the code without comments. Might be easier on the eyes:

var studentNames = [];

while(true){
  search = prompt("Enter a Students Name: [or 'x' to quit]");
  if (search === null || search.toLowerCase() === "x") {
    break;
  }
  for (var i = 0; i < students.length; i++) {
    studentNames.push(students[i].name.toLowerCase());
  }
  if (studentNames.indexOf(search.toLowerCase()) > -1) {
    html += studentRecords(students[studentNames.indexOf(search)]);
    print(html);
  } else {
    print("<h2>" + search + " not found</h2>");
  }
  break;
}

It looks more complicated than it actually is. Hopefully I broke it down easy enough. No other way I tried worked for me, if someone else has a different solution I would love to see it.

Also I think I'm going to stop here and forgo tackling the second part of the extra credit which was to list all the students with the same name. I may change my mind however. But if someone comes up with a solution to that I would love to see it also.

Happy Coding.

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Adrien Contee

Adrien Contee

Here's my solution to part 1 of the extra credit. (Printing a student not found message to the screen)