Question

I would like to create an array of users[id,name]

31, Bob Smith
22, Rac Meda
301, Bill burns

With this array I need to be able to:

1. Add an item to the array
2. Given a name, determine if the name is in the array
3. Given a textarea with the 3 names, when a user modifies the text area validate that the 3 names are still in the textarea. If not, remove the name from the array.

Suggestions? Thanks

Answer 1

As for the <textarea> you can split the input’s value at the end of each line, then loop through each line and split it by ', ' (a comma and a space).

HTML

<textarea>31, Bob Smith
22, Rac Meda
301, Bill burns</textarea>

JavaScript

//declare an object so we can make an associative array
var myObj = {};

//bind an event handler to the change event for the textarea
$('textarea').bind('change', function () {

    //separate all the lines in the textarea
    var lines = this.value.split("\n"),
        tmp   = '';

    //iterate through each line
    for (a in lines) {

        //split the line at its comma
        tmp = lines[a].split(', ');

        //add the key->value pair to our object
        myObj[tmp[0]] = tmp[1];
    }

    //check to see if Bob smith is in the array of users, if so then alert
    if ($.inArray('Bob Smith', myObj)) {
        alert('Bob\'s In');
    }
}).trigger('change');//this runs the event handler on load

Here is a jsfiddle of the above code: http://jsfiddle.net/Xq2qc/1/

NOTE: This code does not handle complex user interactions where the user may not use the exact syntax when adding/removing users from the textbox; I’ll leave that up to you to figure out.