Question

I’m trying to work with an SVG polygon and javascript. I create a polygon and set its initial point list like this:

var polygon = document.createElementNS('http://www.w3.org/2000/svg','polygon');
polygon.setAttribute("points", "0,0  100,100 200,200");

now what do I do if I want to modify the 2nd point (100,100)? Right now I’m basically reconstructing the whole string again. But can we address “polygon.points” as an array somehow, or is it really just a plain simple string? This can work ok for very simple polygons, but if my polygon eventually has hundreds of point pairs, I’d hate to reconstruct the entire “points” attribute as a string every time I want to modify a single element.

Thanks

Answer 1

No way around it I’m afraid. You have to reconstruct the string again. But it’s not difficult to wrap the whole thing in an object, something like:

function Polygon () {
    var pointList = [];
    this.node = document.createElementNS('http://www.w3.org/2000/svg','polygon');
    function build (arg) {
        var res = [];
        for (var i=0,l=arg.length;i<l;i++) {
            res.push(arg[i].join(','));
        }
        return res.join(' ');
    }
    this.attribute = function (key,val) {
        if (val === undefined) return node.getAttribute(key);
        node.setAttribute(key,val);
    }
    this.getPoint = function (i) {return pointList[i]}
    this.setPoint = function (i,x,y) {
        pointList[i] = [x,y];
        this.attribute('points',build(pointList));
    }
    this.points = function () {
      for (var i=0,l=arguments.length;i<l;i+=2) {
          pointList.push([arguments[i],arguments[i+1]]);
      }
      this.attribute('points',build(pointList));
    }
    // initialize 'points':
    this.points.apply(this,arguments);
}

var polygon = new Polygon(0,0, 100,100, 200,200);
polygon.setPoint(0, 50,10); // set point and automatically re-build points
polygon.points(50,50, 50,100, 200,100); // set everything
polygon.node; // refer to the actual SVG element

* not the best implementation but you get the idea.