How to generate sequence of numbers/chars in javascript?

Question

Hi,

Is there a way to generate sequence of characters or numbers in javascript?

For example, I want to create array that contains eight 1s. I can do it with for loop, but wondering whether there is a jQuery library or javascript function that can do it for me?

Thank you

Answer 1

You can make your own re-usable function I suppose, for your example:

function makeArray(count, content) {
   var result = [];
   if(typeof(content) == "function") {
      for(var i=0; i<count; i++) {
         result.push(content(i));
      }
   } else {
      for(var i=0; i<count; i++) {
         result.push(content);
      }
   }
   return result;
}

Then you could do either of these:

var myArray = makeArray(8, 1);
//or something more complex, for example:
var myArray = makeArray(8, function(i) { return i*3; });

You can give it a try here, note the above example doesn't rely on jQuery at all so you can use it without. You just don't gain anything from the library for something like this :)

Answer 2

for (var i=8, a=[]; i--;) a.push(1);

Answer 3

The fastest way to define an array of 8 1s is to define it-
var A= [1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1];

// You'd have to need a lot of 1s to make a dedicated function worthwhile.

// Maybe in the Matrix, when you want a lot of Smiths:

Array.repeat= function(val, len){
    for(var i= len, a= []; i--; ) a[i]= val;
    return a;
}
var A= Array.repeat('Smith',100)

/*  returned value: (String)
Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith, Smith
*/