Question

I have an array called newposts

I itterate through it and if it meets certain criteria, I add it to another array:

for (newpost in newposts){
    if (!(  newposts[newpost][0] in currentposts )){
        var triploc1 = locations[newposts[newpost][1]].location;
        var triploc2 = locations[newposts[newpost][2]].location;
        var detour_distance = fourpoint_distance(newloc1, triploc1, triploc2, newloc2);
        if (worthwhile_detour(original_distance,detour_distance)){
            currentposts.push(posts[newposts[newpost][0]])
        }
    }
}

The second row, is intended to check for duplicates(newposts[newpost][0]) is an ID. When I wrote it I had forgotten that currentposts was an array. Obviously, this doesn’t work. I need currentposts to be an array, because just below i sort it. I could ofcourse convert it into an array once the selection is done. But I’m new to javascript and believe someone might know a better way to do this.

function sortposts(my_posts){
    my_posts.sort(function(a, b) {
        var acount = a.sortvar;
        var bcount = b.sortvar;
        return (bcount-acount);
    });

}

Answer 1

I’m not exactly sure what your desired goal here is, but I can try and clean this up for you. Please note that I’m using the underscore.js library as it makes working with arrays a HECK OF A LOT easier 🙂 If you can’t include underscore.js into your project, let me know and I’ll write it in “pure” javascript 🙂

_.each(newposts, function(item) {
    if ( _.indexOf(currentposts, posts[item[0]]) >= 0 ) {
        var triploc1 = locations[item[1]].location;
        var triploc2 = locations[item[2]].location;

        var detour_distance = fourpoint_distance(newloc1, triploc1, triploc2, newloc2);

        if (worthwhile_detour(original_distance, detour_distance)){
            currentposts.push(posts[item[0]])
        }
    }
});

_.sortBy(currentposts, function(item) {
    return item.sortvar;
});

I have to question, however, why you’re using so many arrays (newposts, locations, posts, etc)? Are they all needed?