Question

I need to build an array of paths based on the current directory back to a predefined top level directory.

In Javascript have two variables ‘topLevelDirectory’ and ‘currentDirectory’

I need an array of all paths in between.

example :

 topLevelDirectory = "/sectionA/sectionB"
    currentDirectory = "/sectionA/sectionB/sectionC/sectionD/sectionE

“

I need an array ‘allPaths’ that would have the values:

allPaths[0] = '/sectionA/sectionB/'
   allPaths[1] = '/sectionA/sectionB/sectionC/'
   allPaths[2] = '/sectionA/sectionB/sectionC/sectionD/'
   allPaths[3] = '/sectionA/sectionB/sectionC/sectionD/sectionE/'

I am using Jquery.

I know I can split currentDirectory but then I am not getting the value I need,
‘sectionC’ instead of ‘/sectionA/sectionB/sectionC/’

I am not expecting the full code to the answer, just some help in what functions or procedures I should be trying to tie together.

Any help is appreciated.

Answer 1

This isn’t very elegant or terribly robust, but it seems to work for your example…

function segmentPath(topLevelDir, currentDir) {

    function normalizePath(str) {
        return str.replace(/(^\/+|\/+$)/g, ''); // strip leading/trailing slashes
    }

    topLevelDir = normalizePath(topLevelDir);
    currentDir = normalizePath(currentDir);

    var relativePath = normalizePath(currentDir.slice(topLevelDir.length));
    relativePath = relativePath.split('/');

    var segments = ["/" + topLevelDir];

    for (var i = 0, l = relativePath.length; i < l; i++) {
        segments.push(segments[i] + "/" + relativePath[i]);
    }

    return segments;
}

Here’s a demo: http://jsfiddle.net/QrCBn/