Question

I am having trouble with a simple JavaScript calculation. My document is supposed to add $1.50 to an order if it is $25 or less, or add 10% of the order if it is more then $25. The exact problem is:

Many companies normally charge a shipping and handling charge for purchases. Create a Web page that allows a user to enter a purchase price into a text box and includes a JavaScript function that calculates shipping and handling. Add functionality to the script that adds a minimum shipping and handling charge of $1.50 for any purchase that is less than or equal to $25.00. For any orders over $25.00, add 10% to the total purchase price for shipping and handling, but do not include the $1.50 minimum shipping and handling charge. The formula for calculating a percentage is price * percent / 100. For example, the formula for calculating 10% of a $50.00 purchase price is 50 * 10 / 100, which results in a shipping and handling charge of $5.00. After you determine the total cost of the order (purchase plus shipping and handling), display it in an alert dialog box.

This is my code:

    var price = window.prompt("What is the purchase price?", 0);
var shipping = calculateShipping(price);
var total = price + shipping;
function calculateShipping(price){
if (price <= 25){
 return 1.5;
}
else{
 return price * 10 / 100
}
}
window.alert("Your total is $" + total + ".");

When testing I enter a number in the prompt box, and instead of calculating as if I entered a number it calculates as if I entered a string. i.e. i enter 19 and it gives me 191.5 or I enter 26 and it gives me 262.6

Answer 1

Using parseFloat will help you:

var price = parseFloat(window.prompt("What is the purchase price?", 0))
var shipping = parseFloat(calculateShipping(price));
var total = price +shipping;
function calculateShipping(price){
if (price <= 25){
 return 1.5;
}
else{
 return price * 10 / 100
}
}
window.alert("Your total is $" + total + ".");

See it working at: http://jsfiddle.net/e8U6W/

Also, a little-known put more performant way of doing this would be simply to -0:

var price =window.prompt("What is the purchase price?", 0) - 0;

(See: Is Subtracting Zero some sort of JavaScript performance trick?)

Be sure to comment this, though as its not as obvious to those reading your code as parseFloat