Question

I am working on a small web project and I’m a little confused abour creating variables in JS.

The app allows people to create shapes on a canvas using the JS library Raphael. It’s all very simple but what i would like to know is, lets say the user creates 10 cubes. How would i do this in javascript, I mean, Each of these cubes would need their own variable name so they could be referenced, How would i go about letting the user create variables whenever they create an object?

I realise this may seem like an incredibly stupid question but my brain is a bit frazzled at the moment.

Thanks for any help on the matter.

Answer 1

Create an array.

var cubes = [];

Each time the user creates one, you can add it to the array:

cubes.push(newCube);

Then, you can refer to a given cube with:

cubes[3]

Or, iterate them with a loop:

for (var i = 0; i < cubes.length; i++) {
    // do something with cubes[i]
}

Alternately, you don’t have to store them all, you can just find and iterate them in the DOM using normal DOM manipulation tools.