asked on

Arrays, loops, and conditional statements

I am working on a homework assignment and I can't figure out for the life of my WHY it won't work! It is supposed to create a bar chart based on information on political candidates and the amount of votes they got and it does nothing. The book I am using is horrible and I have been looking at this for the last 7 hours and can't see where my errors are. Please...can someone please take a look at what I have and make some recommendations based on what I coded??

For reference, the text I am using is called "New Perspectives on Javascript".

the .html code
 
[code]
 
<title>Congressional Races</title>
<link href="images/results.css" rel="stylesheet" type="text/css"/>
<script type="text/javascript" src="votes.js"></script>
<script type="text/javascript"> // script element to add the votes.js
 
function totalVotes(votes){ // script element that will calculate the array
     var total = 0;
     for (var i = 0; i < votes.length; i++);
          {
             total = total + votes[i];
          }
     return total;
}
 
function calcPercent(item,sum){ // script element to calculate the percentage which is rounded to the nearest integer
     var item = Math.round((item/sum))*100); // script element to get the percentage
return item;
}
     calcPercent();
 
 
 
function createBar(partyType,percent){ // script element to create blank cells
switch(partyType) {
case D: <td class='dem'></td>
break;
case R: <td class='rep'></td>
break;
case I: <td class='ind'></td>
break;
case G: <td class='green'></td>
break;
case L: <td class='lib'></td>
break;
}
var barTxt = partyType;
 
for (i=0; i < percent; i++){
document.write(barText);
}
 
}
 
function showResults(race,name,party,votes){ // script element to display the results of a particular race
var totalIV = totalVotes(votes);
document.write("<h2>" + race + "</h2>");
document.write("<table cellspacing='0'>");
document.write("<tr>");
document.write("<th>Canidate</th>");
document.write("<th class ='num'>Votes</th>");
document.write("<th class='num'>%</th>");
document.write("</tr>");
 
 
for (var i=0; i < name.length; i++){
document.write("<tr>");
document.write("<td>" name[i] + "(" + party[i] + ")</td>");
document.write("td class='num'>" + votes[i] + "</td>");
 
var percent=calcPercent(votes[i], totalV)
 
document.write("<td class='num'>(" + percent +"%)</td>");
 
createBar(party[i],percent)
document.write("</tr>");
}
document.write("</table>");
}
</script>
 
</head>
 
<body>
 
<div id="intro">
<p><img src="images/logo.jpg" alt="Election Day Results"/></p>
<a href="#">President</a>
<a href="#">Senate Races</a>
<a href="#">Congressional Races</a>
<a href="#">State Senate</a>
<a href="#">State House</a>
<a href="#">Local Races</a>
<a href="#">Judicial</a>
<a href="#">Referendums</a>
</div>
 
<div id="results">
<h1>Congressional Races</h1>
<script type="text/javascript">
showResults(race[0],name1,party1,votes1)...
showResults(race[1],name2,party2,votes2)...
showResults(race[2],name3,party3,votes3)...
showResults(race[3],name4,party4,votes4)...
showResults(race[4],name5,party5,votes5)...
</script>
</div>
 
</body>
</html>
 
[/code]
 
*/the javascript code that was included with the assignment.  I didn't have to modify this to my knowledge:......../*
 
[code]
 
Filename: votes.js
 
Variable List:
 
races: The name of the five races
name1 - name5: The name of the candidate for races 1 through 5
party1 - party5: The party affliations of the candidates
votes1 - votes5: The number of votes the candidate has received
 
*/
 
var race = new Array();
 
var name1 = new Array();
var name2 = new Array();
var name3 = new Array();
var name4 = new Array();
var name5 = new Array();
 
var party1 = new Array();
var party2 = new Array();
var party3 = new Array();
var party4 = new Array();
var party5 = new Array();
 
var votes1 = new Array();
var votes2 = new Array();
var votes3 = new Array();
var votes4 = new Array();
var votes5 = new Array();
 
 
race[0]="1st Congressional District";
race[1]="2nd Congressional District";
race[2]="3rd Congressional District";
race[3]="4th Congressional District";
race[4]="5th Congressional District";
 
name1[0]="Sarah Carlson";
party1[0]="D";
votes1[0]=45125;
name1[1]="Pete deJesus";
party1[1]="R";
votes1[1]=44498;
name1[2]="Alan Tompkins";
party1[2]="I";
votes1[2]=5143;
 
name2[0]="Gary Griffin";
party2[0]="D";
votes2[0]=69505;
name2[1]="Frank Brown";
party2[1]="R";
votes2[1]=78133;
name2[2]="Roland Washington";
party2[2]="G";
votes2[2]=8109;
name2[3]="Karen Rees
 
[/code]

Open in new window

taliesin1977

I may have missed something, but I didn't see any variable declarations/assignments for your switch statements cases (i.e. D, R, I, G, L) so it is probably using the equivalent the equivalent of "case null" for all options....In other words, there is a bug and you need quotes around them as shown in the attached snippet.

function createBar(partyType,percent){ // script element to create blank cells
switch(partyType) {
case "D": <td class='dem'></td>
break;
case "R": <td class='rep'></td>
break;
case "I": <td class='ind'></td>
break;
case "G": <td class='green'></td>
break;
case "L": <td class='lib'></td>
break;
}
var barTxt = partyType;
 
for (i=0; i < percent; i++){
document.write(barText);
}
 
}

Open in new window

theras2000

I've being trying hard to look through it, but I'm just not too good these days. I found a few things:

var item = Math.round((item/sum))*100);
-> has too many closing brackets.

name2[3]="Karen Rees
-> needs to finish with ";

for (var i=0; i < name.length; i++){
document.write("<tr>");
document.write("<td>" name[i] + "(" + party[i] + ")</td>");
document.write("td class='num'>" + votes[i] + "</td>");
...
createBar(party[i],percent)
-> It seems to me that you're using the length of the name for the i counter, but then using the same i counter for party (whereas party is much shorter).

Other than that, I keep getting errors on the first case statement, and I can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. So there's my tidbits. I hope they help you get a little closer.

Roger Baklund

Line 61 seems to have an error. There is a missing + here:

document.write("<td>" name[i] + "(" + party[i] + ")</td>");

It should be:

document.write("<td>" + name[i] + "(" + party[i] + ")</td>");

theras2000

So I'm guessing you typed all this stuff out by hand, just reading the book. That would explaijn these little errors. Did the book have a CD included or anything with the code already in a file?

seeminglylost

ASKER

I have gone through and deleted what I had and re-did it. I have attached the elect.html and the votes.js as files so they are easier to read.

The errors that I am getting are as follows when using Firefox:

line 65 - missing ) after argument list
line 98 - showResults is not defined

theras 2000 - I am using the files provided by the book. The only thing that I add is the functions.

Any further assistance would be appreciated as I cannot get it to work.
votes.txt
election.txt

Roger Baklund

Change line 65 from this:

document.write("<td>" name[k] + "(" + party[j] + ")</td>");

... into this:

document.write("<td>" + name[k] + "(" + party[j] + ")</td>");

seeminglylost

ASKER

Thank you! That resolved one of the errors.

I am still getting an error on line 98 - race is not defined.

Any further ideas?

ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION

Roger Baklund

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