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Insert alphabetically with jQuery

I was working on a single page for a work job that involved saving and loading data without reloading the page. To do this I had to insert values into drop down lists (two fo them, one for loading and one for deleting). Initially I was just going to add a group at the bottom, but it seemed like a cheap way to go, so I created a script to add the items in the existing lists where they belong. All these list were alphabetical, so it was really simple. The code below is a derivative of my original drop down menu modification code that places items in an ordered list, except it:

  • ‘+name+’

  • ‘+name+’

Snipplr: http://snipplr.com/view/49762/insert-alphabetically-with-jquery/

The code works in four parts, first we get the new item, in this case it’s the contents of a text field, and we make sure it’s not blank. Then we go through the list in question, in this case it’s at il.thelist and go through each item one my one. Then we get the value of the list item and compare it to the value of the item were adding. It’s no problem to compare string, it works the same was as comparing numbers, the only think to note is that capitals and lower case letter have different “values” so to speak so to get try alphabetization you must capitalize (or lowercase, it shouldn’t matter) both the string when comparing. Finally you insert the item before the first hit, and set variable so that it won’t continue to add it after every item from that point on. You also need to have one final check against that variable, so if it was never added to the list (as it in there is nothing that would come after it, given how it’s being checked) then it can go to the end of the list (because at this point it’s the only place left that it could possibly belong in).

I’ve set up a jQuery insert alphabetically example if your interested, I can also answer any questions you have, just leave a comment.

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Super Simple Content filtering with jQuery

Earlier today or yesterday (it kinda all meshes together) I was tasked with creating a filter for a rather large table output. I considered using ajax but since all the records were being loaded by default re-loading partial results seemed like a waste so I went with a jQuery solution, after some refining I got this.

Snipplr: http://snipplr.com/view/49255/simple-jquery-content-filter-with-bonus-alternating-row-reset/

Simple and concise, it creates a new jQuery function “Contains” (not the capitalization) that searches inside an element without cases sensitivity. then it hides or shows the element accordingly. The resign for the show is so that when deleting characters from your search, bordaning it, results that were filtered appear again. This works great for lists like the one in the easy jquery filter example here.

If you want to use it with a table all you have to do it change the selector a bit, select all td elements instead and then select the parent of $(this) to remove or show the entire row, it’ll end of looking something like this.

Snipplr: http://snipplr.com/view/49255/simple-jquery-content-filter-with-bonus-alternating-row-reset/

Got that tabe set up with alternating row colors? Just one more simple modification, use some if statements to toggle what you want the class to be back and fourth and and apply the style accordingly. Looking something like this.

Snipplr: http://snipplr.com/view/49255/simple-jquery-content-filter-with-bonus-alternating-row-reset/

Each further iteration of the script is slower, and I noticed some lagg with the last one on my old laptop (not in any way enough to be a problem), mind you it was running all development apps and browser when I was working on it, so it was under abnormally heavy load (and, you know, a 3+ year old baseline machine). Any moder machine under normal conditions can breeze through this in a 2500+ entry table with alternating rows without a notice. It can always be expanded to include fancy animations (jQuery “blind” would work well here) and anything else you may want, but this makes a good working system if your not interested in the fancy stuff.

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MySQL joins made easy with naming! (and other mysql tricks)

In the interest of decreased overhead or a simpler bit of code it’s often necessary to join multiple arrays together from the mysql query. It saved from making a bunch of mysql calls in a loop and general is easier to work with, except for when the two tables share some common schema names, then it gets kinda messy. A php array can only have 1 item with a particular name, so if both your tables have a “name” field well ones going to write over the other. That is, unless, you do some renaming.

Lets say you have two tables, one for names and one for addresses, both of these have some common items, like an id, and lets sane a name (the name of the person and the name of the address (home, wrok, ect), along with their independent data).

If you did a simple mysql join like this:
SELECT n.id, n.name, a.name FROM names a LEFT JOIN address a ON n.id = a.person_id;

In this case, the output would be something like this:
array(
[0] => 4
[1] => John Doe
[2] => Home Address
[name] => Home Address
)

Now in this example it’s not hard to just use the numbers, But it’s easier to soo what I’m getting at when theres not a ton of fields to wade through. As you can see from the example you can only define name once, so to call the persons names you have to call it via 1. The solution to this is simple, give them all new, proper names like this.
SELECT n.id AS 'id', n.name AS 'person', a.name AS 'address_type' FROM names a LEFT JOIN address a ON n.id = a.person_id;

Those simple little AS statements are all it takes to turn a messy disorganized one into a neat one, using the above example it would now look something like this.
array(
[id] => 4
[person] => John Doe
[address_type] => Home Address
)

Makes for a much simpler fetch array does it not? This can also be used for queries that don’t have a join if you just want to do some renaming, the only reason I’ve even though of for that is when I want to use some variable variables (for small calls that I’m not running via a loop for whatever reason, there aren’t many). It turns out something like this.
SELECT c.ttl AS 'county', s.ttl AS 'state' FROM counties c LEFT JOIN states s ON c.id = s.id

After that run it through a little bit of variable variableness like $$result['state'] = $result['country']. And just like that you have an array of a state name with the country of origin in it. It’s pretty pointless but I have found a use for it when filling data to very short tables, anything more than about 4 entries might as well be done in an array (not to mention an array is easier). I guess it could be used as a way to obfuscate code (especially if you use nonsensical single letter variables) but I’ve never seen a good reason to make your work harder to decipher for the next guy.

The last little tip I’ve used to pre-formatting information, just to save yourself a little extra work, it’s somewhat limited what you can do but it can save you a line of PHP, and sometimes, well, hell you might as well. Lets say I’m sorting images in the img/ folder, and the filenames are stores in the database under the logical schema filename. A simple little query like this:
SELECT name, concat('img/', filename) FROM images

The output will now look like img/filename.jpg. I have actually found a good use for this. Pulling image names from two separate locations. One a serialize table sotred in a single tabel entry, another in a completely different table stored as just a name. Both scripts, of course, written by completely different people. One set had the image path already attached to it, the other didn’t, so all I had to do it concat the path to the ones stored in the database and then I didn’t have to worry about checking in PHP if it had the path or not, saved another if statement, although honestly I havent checked the speed of processing, so I don’t know if it’s actually faster (the code is shorter, and I like short code, look neat and tidy).

Have any tips, want some clarification, leave a comment and I’ll get back to you, clarify anything that I made extra confusing. LOL, like anybody reads this blog.