Skip to main content

Reverse an Array while considering Memory Allocation

The Problem:

At the company I work for, we interview for front-end developer positions quite frequently. One of my coworkers always asked the interviewee how to reverse an array in JavaScript.  Just for fun, I decided to to take on the challenge since .net makes it too easy (array.Reverse()).

Originally, my answer to the question was this:


var stringArray = [" Joey!", " Is", " Name", "my", " Hello,"];
var temp = new Array();

for(i = 0; i < stringArray.length; i++)
temp.push(actual[(stringArray.length - 1) - i]);

console.log(temp);

My coworker said my solution would definitely work, but he then asked how I can improve the answer by saving on memory. 

What I learned:

I didn't know how to improve the answer until I learned about JavaScript's splice method. Here's my improved script using splice:



var stringArray = [" Joey!", " Is", " Name", "my", " Hello,"];
var temp = new Array();

while(stringArray.length)
temp.push(stringArray.splice(-1, 1)[0]);

console.log(temp);


With splice, as I'm moving an array value to the temp array, I'm completely removing the value and index from stringArray.  In other words, as temp is growing, stringArray is shrinking. Eventually, stringArray will be empty.  This method of reversing an array is a better solution than my original.

Further reading:
http://davidwalsh.name/remove-item-array-javascript

Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Resolved Sitecore "If you publish now, the selected version will not be visible on the web site" warning

The Problem:   Unable to publish any Sitecore item within a particular site, even out of the workflow. Rather, a warning reads " If you publish now, the selected version will not be visible on the web site " What I've Discovered: I couldn't publish any item in the site, not just one or two I viewed all parent items of the items in question The main home page displayed a different warning " This item will never be published because it's publishable option is disabled " Another sitecore developer reminded me of the standard fields option View --> check standard fields to show all standard page fields Found out that somebody checked Never Publish within the publishing section The Fix: After I unchecked the checkbox and saved the change, I was able to publish again.  :) Conclusion: Looks like another Sitecore user thought the children items would not be affected by this change.  Lesson  learned.

[Resolved] Sitecore ParseException: End of string expected at position...

Problem:  I have a line of code that uses Sitecore Fast Query to pull all items + children starting with a site item, like so: Item [] allItems = db.SelectItems( "fast:" + sitecorePath + "//*" ); Unfortunately, I would get a Sitecore parsing error at runtime: ParseException: End of string expected at position... Turns out Sitecore doesn't like hyphens ('-') in any sitecore path when using fast query, which I have a few distributor sites in a folder which contained hyphens. Solution: I create a simple method that resolves a sitecore path to be Sitecore fast query friendly:             string sitecorePath = "" ;             if (siteItem.Paths.FullPath.Contains( "-" ))             {                 String [...

Create a File Upload Service using Node.js / Express / Multer

Problem:    I needed to create a form that essentially uploads a file to a server, then posts the rest of the form data to a second server with the new file name. In other words, post the image to an “Image” server, then posts the form data (with the file URL) to a “Form Data” server. Solution:  Create an Express server that uses the “Multer” library to accomplish this. The Code: Create the express server and have it listen on a specific port var express = require( 'express' ); var app = express (); app . listen ( 3313 , function (){     console . log ( 'listening on port 3313' ); }); Install Multer.  Read here: https://www.npmjs.com/package/multer Include Multer to your express app.  We’ll be tweaking the storage properties so you can name the file whatever you like. At the end, you should have an “upload” object you’ll be using in the next step. be sure to change the file destination of your choice. var expre...