Question

If I have an array of objects is there any way possible for the item to splice itself out of the array that contains it?

For example: If a bad guy dies he will splice himself out of the array of active enemies.

I probably sound crazy but that ability would simplify my code dramatically, so I hope for something cool =)

Answer 1

The way you would do it is as follows:

var game_state = { active_enemies: [] };
function Enemy() {
    // Various enemy-specific things go here
}
Enemy.prototype.remove = function() {
    // NOTE: indexOf is not supported in all browsers (IE < 8 most importantly)
    // You will probably either want to use a shim like es5-shim.js
    // or a utility belt like Underscore.js
    var i = game_state.active_enemies.indexOf(this);
    game_state.active_enemies.splice(i, 1);
}

See:

• Es5-Shim
• Underscore.js

Notta bene: There are a couple of issues here with this manner of handling game state. Make sure you are consistent (i.e. don’t have enemies remove themselves from the list of active enemies, but heroes remove enemies from the map). It will also make things more difficult to comprehend as the code gets more complex (your Enemy not only is an in-game enemy, but also a map state manager, but it’s probably not the only map state manager. When you want to make changes to how you manage map state, you want to make sure that code is structured in such a way that you only need to change it in one place [preferably]).