Question

I’ll admit I’m weak in JavaScript and JSON. I’ve spent a lot of time attempting to figure out why numbers from my objects returns NaN when they are added together. With that in mind, below is my JSON, stored to a variable:

var data = [
    {
        "acc_ext_id": null,
        "cat_code": 10002,
        "cat_ds": "REVENUE",
        "category_id": null,
        "chart_id": null,
        "created_at": null,
        "dept_id": null,
        "feb": null,
        "id": null,
        "jan": 30,
        "note": null,
        "total_cost": null,
        "updated_at": null,
        "year_id": null
    },
    {
        "acc_ext_id": "41260-02600",
        "cat_code": 10002,
        "cat_ds": "REVENUE",
        "category_id": 2,
        "chart_id": 2373,
        "created_at": "2013-01-15 16:43:52.169213",
        "dept_id": 86,
        "feb": 45,
        "id": 3,
        "jan": 60,
        "note": "Two",
        "total_cost": 105,
        "updated_at": "2013-01-15 16:43:52.169213",
        "year_id": 1
    }
]

I then attempt to iterate over the objects and sum the values:

var jan;

for (var i=0;i<data.length;i++){ 
    if(data[i].jan != null){    
        jan += parseFloat(data[i].jan);
        console.log(jan);
    }
}

Printed out in the console is NaN. I’ve attempted to parse the number as well as leave it raw, but to no avail. Is there something wrong with my objects? Here is a jsFiddle to illustrate: http://jsfiddle.net/5E2pm/3/

Answer 1

var jan = 0; //this should solve it

for (var i=0;i<data.length;i++){ 
    if(data[i].jan != null){    
        jan += parseFloat(data[i].jan);
        console.log(jan);
    }
}

Try this should solve it 🙂

Explanation as quoted by DON in comments below:

var jan; this will declare variable as undefined, so when you try to
add values with undefined you will get as NaN, so the answer here with
var jan = 0 will work – DON