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JavaScript JavaScript Loops, Arrays and Objects Tracking Multiple Items with Arrays Useful Array Methods

Kyle Gibbons
Kyle Gibbons
1,388 Points

Question about the search variable?

When looking at this example, how does the search variable know what's inside the var inStock? I guess I'm confused on why we don't just use the variable inStock, instead of the variable search. I would have thought we would have had to print out var inStock = search;.

Thanks for any help you can provide....

``` var inStock = [ 'apples', 'eggs', 'milk', 'cookies', 'cheese', 'bread', 'lettuce', 'carrot', 'broccoli', 'pizza', 'potato', 'crackers', 'onion', 'tofu', 'frozen dinner', 'cucumber']; var search;

function print(message) { document.write( '<p>' + message + '</p>'); }

while (true){ search = prompt("Search for a product in our store. T 'list' to show all of the produce and 'quit' to exit"); search = search.toLowerCase(); if ( search ==='quit') { break; } else if ( search === 'list' ) { print ( inStock.join( ', ')); }else { if (instock.indexOf (search) > -1) { print( 'Yes, we have ' + search + ' in the store.'); } else{ print( search + ' is not in stock.'); } } } ```

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
229,744 Points

The variable inStock is the complete array of all products.

The purpose of search is to check to see if one specific product is among those in the inStock array. You would not want to compare them directly because one is a list of many products, and the other is one single product.