Question

Hey I’m relatively new to javascript programming and I’m working on a javascript game and I need help with this script:

a = ();          //a is the number of the quest completed e.g. 3 would be Quest3 
Quest1 = "Hello1"
Quest2 = "Hello2"
Quest3 = "Hello3"
Quest4 = "Hello4"
Quest5 = "Hello5"
Quest6 = "Hello6"
Quest7 = 0         //This is just a placeholder for the end of the list

This is a script for a list of quests in chronological order of when they were recieved. That the player needs to complete.
When a quest is completed it is removed from the list and the list is moved up to fill in the space
The way I was doing this was, even though there is probably a better way to do it (If anyone knows of a better way let me know). So say if Quest3 was completed then the following code would execute to make the list move up starting at the quest completed:

Quest3 = Quest4;
Quest4 = Quest5;
Quest5 = Quest6;

That script is starting at Quest3, but I need that script to be able to start at any point and I wanted to use ‘a’ for that. So if a = 4 then the script would start at Quest4:

Quest4 = Quest5
Quest5 = Quest6

This script would go backwards if a new quest was added so, since new quests added will always go to Quest1 then the following script would execute:

Quest6 = Quest7  //Get rid of quest 6
Quest5 = Quest4
Quest4 = Quest3
Quest2 = Quest1
Quest1 = "The New Quest"

So the maximum amount of quests the player could have could be 6 (much higher in the actual game so the player never reaches the limit.

So if anyone knows how to have the starting point for the script to add a new quest, dynamic and or a better way to move the list up of down to fill in the gap, let me know.

Answer 1

You should use Arrays no matter what language you use in this case:

This is example in javascript:

var maxQuests = 6;
var quests = new Array();
var activeQuests = 0;

function addQuest(questName) {
    if (activeQuests >= maxQuests) return;
    activeQuests++;
    quests.push(questName);
}

function completeQuest(questName) {
    if (!quests.contains(questName)) return;
    activeQuests--;
    quests.splice(quests.indexOf(questName), 1);
}

http://jsfiddle.net/xguwk/

It’s the way it should be programmed. You can change the number of quests as a parameter, you don’t need to rewrite your code.