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JavaScript

Posted by Ashi A
Ashi A
2,531 Points

Student Search solution - Close but no cigar (need help)

I tried to check if 2 or more students have the same name. However, I end up printing the first instance of the name correctly. But the second instance of the name gets printed twice. Note: if only one instance of a name exists, it prints out nicely.

I'm not sure what I'm doing incorrectly. AFAIK, there's something funky with my forEach implementation (Line 31)

Would love help/tips on how you solved this. 

var message = "";
var student;
var search;
var studentGroup = [];
var html = [];

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

function getStudentReport(studentGroup){
  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("Search student records: type a name [Jody] or 'quit' to quit");

  if (search === null || search.toLowerCase() === "quit"){
    break;
  }

  for (var i = 0; i < students.length; i++){
    student = students[i];
    if (student.name.toLowerCase() === search.toLowerCase() ) {
      studentGroup.push(student);
      studentGroup.forEach(function(name) {
        html.push(getStudentReport(studentGroup));
        print(html);
      });
    }



    }



  //if you cannot find record in the array, print out a nice message 

  if (studentGroup.length === 0) {
    alert("We do not have that student in our system");
  }

}
//end while loop

2 Answers

Umesh Ravji
Umesh Ravji
42,386 Points

Hi Ashi, why are you using a forEach loop inside your for loop? Your print function also should be modified to take a list of strings, can you see the comma that ends up between the outputted names?

html = []; // reset from previous search
for (var i = 0; i < students.length; i++){
    student = students[i];
    if (student.name.toLowerCase() === search.toLowerCase()) {
       studentGroup.push(student); // personally, I would remove this and just check html.length instead
       html.push(getStudentReport(student));
      // remove entire foreach
    }
}

print(html); // finished iterating, now print
Ashi A
Ashi A
2,531 Points

Thanks Umesh. I was trying to use foreach to iterate through any duplicate results.

I think your way is more elegant. Trying it now :)

Ashi A
Ashi A
2,531 Points
Ashi A
Ashi A
2,531 Points

Since my original code was overly complex, rewrote thusly:

var message = "";
var student;
var search;
var studentGroup = [];  //check if name exists 
var html = "";

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

function getStudentReport(student){
  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("Search student records: type a name [Jody] or 'quit' to quit");

  if (search === null || search.toLowerCase() === "quit"){
    break;
  }

  studentGroup = []; //reset after each search 

  //loop through the student records 
  for (var i=0; i < students.length; i++) {
    student = students[i];


    if (student.name.toLowerCase() === search.toLowerCase() ){
      studentGroup.push(student.name);
      html += getStudentReport(student);
      print(html);
      } 
    }


    //if you cannot find record in the array, print out a nice message 

     if (studentGroup.length === 0) {
       alert(studentGroup + "This student couldn't be found");
      }


}
//end while loop
Umesh Ravji
Umesh Ravji
42,386 Points

:)

One step more if you'd like to try would be to just collect the students each iteration, then create a print method that takes a list of students and does all the html creation in there.