Solution for either non-existent student or duplicate name

The code works but I see some little problems in it.

If you have student_n with name Jody and student_k (n < k) with the name Jody, your code prints student_n, then when loop gets to student_k, it prints again student_n and this 2nd time it prints student_k as well and you do not notice visually what happens. Imagine you have 5000 students and 80 of them are Jody, so you will print 79 times before printing the final list... That is why I think print(message) should be outside the loop.

The boolean student_exist is ok but I would prefer it with checking if the message is empty and alert about it or print as you wished.

if (message !== '') {
     print(message)
} else {
    print('No student in class by the name ' + search + '!');
}
message = '';

No need to make lower case the name of the student before printing, in the function getStudentReport(student)

The line message = "" inside the if statement before the break isn't needed as well.

I'd also suggest use blank lines in your code more frequently to make the code more readable.

Thanks, Sam

Thank you Samvel Tadevosyan, your remark about moving of the printing the message variable outside the loop is spot on. As for lowering the case of the search entry and the student name they are necessary for the search success, the user entry ( quit or name be the in lower case or uppercase! The print out comes in the proper capitalization as it is in Students. For the case of empty message it will only happen if there is no student matching the search entry which is already dealt with in the code. As for the message = "" inside the if statement before the break I added it to clean the page off the last search, a matter of personal taste :) , not a requirement though! Best of success for all my colleagues in TreeHouse.

Here is a modified and tested version of my code:

var message = '';
var student;
var search;
student_exist = false;  //Setting up a flag

function print(message) {
  var outputDiv = document.getElementById('output');
  outputDiv.innerHTML = message;
}

function getStudentReport(student) {
  student.name.toLowerCase();
  var report = '<h2>Student: ' + student.name + '</h2>';
  report += '<p>Track: ' + student.track + '</p>';
  report += '<p>Points: ' + student.points + '</p>';
  report += '<p>Achievements: ' + student.achievements + '</p>';
  return report;
  }

while (true) {
  search = prompt('To search for a student : Enter name [Jody]; to exit enter quit');
  if (search === null || search.toLowerCase() === 'quit') {
      message = "";
      print(message);
      break;
  }
  message = ""; // clearing last search result

  for (var i = 0; i < students.length; i += 1) {
    student = students[i];
    if (student.name.toLowerCase() === search.toLowerCase() ) {
      message += getStudentReport( student );
        student_exist = true;  //Student found raising the flag
    } //end of if statement
  } // end of for loop

    print(message);// printing out the result of search

    // checking if search did not find the search entry in students
    if (!(student_exist)) {
       message = "No student in class by the name you entered.";
       print(message);
    }

    student_exist = false; // resetting the flag for next search

 } // end of while loop

Mohsen,

I was not speaking about the var search for the lower case issue. You have such function:

function getStudentReport(student) {
  student.name.toLowerCase();
  var report = '<h2>Student: ' + student.name + '</h2>';
  report += '<p>Track: ' + student.track + '</p>';
  report += '<p>Points: ' + student.points + '</p>';
  report += '<p>Achievements: ' + student.achievements + '</p>';
  return report;
 }

I am sorry, I did not get your point for this line: student.name.toLowerCase(); As I see it has no role. Just remove it and run your code, the results should be the same .

In this chunk of code:

  print(message);

    if (!(student_exist)) {
       message = "No student in class by the name you entered.";
       print(message);
    }

you can do the same with 1 print(message), that will look like this:

    if (!(student_exist)) {
       message = "No student in class by the name you entered.";
     }
    print(message);

Samvel Tadevosyan, you are right .

Thank you once more , Mohsen

Hi Mohsen Qaddoura , I'm trying to figure out a solution to the duplicate student name. Would you mind explaining what you did here exactly?

NIr Frank, the solution for the duplicate name was straight forward. It only needed a tiny modification that is easy to miss; ( "+=" instead of "=").

In the if statement {} inside the for loop you'll find this assignment statement :

message += getStudentReport( student );

which is equivalent to:

message = message + getStudentReport( student );

meaning it keeps adding similar names , after checking them with if statement condition, instead of replacing the name , by reassigning, as it did before without the plus sign. I hope this explanation was clear enough .

Regards, Mohsen