Question

Given the following code which works:

for (i=0; i<nLinears; i++) {
    for (j=0; j<nLinearPts[i]-1; j++) {
        $wb.upLinearLoad.append('<div>' + sprintf("%5s%8.1f to%7.1f%8.1f"
        ,sLinearSegName[i][j],fLinearPtBA[i][j],fLinearPtBA[i][j+1],fLen)
        .replace(/ /g,"&nbsp;"));
    }
}

This ensures that as the numbers change from small (more leading spaces) to large (fewer leading spaces), the column spacing will be maintained. However, as I understand it, using the regular expression for the .replace is not efficient, and as I have this kind of structure throughout the application, I need to have it run as fast as possible.

I believe that jQuery .text() will take care my need, but I also need to .append() the .text() result, and I can’t figure out how to make them work together.

Any suggestions will be greatly appreciated.

Answer 1

You could update the sprintf() function to output non-breaking spaces in the first place.

But have you actually found a performance problem using a regex .replace()? I don’t think you’ll have a problem. Given that you seem to have tabular data, why don’t you use a <table>? This is what tables are for.