CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptjqueryhtmlrandom
Hope
Hope

Reputation: 15

How to get a random number each time the code is executed for replace?

I'm writing a JavaScript function that looks at a webpage and replaces every instance of a price with a random string from an array I made. Each time I run my script on a webpage a different string is chosen from the array, but it chooses the same string for every instance of the replace method. How can I have each replace pick a random number? I actually had this working at one point but I had to change my code and now it repeats the same string.

Here is my code:

$("*").each( function() { //go through each paragraph
    var curr = $(this).html();

    var price = Math.floor(Math.random() * pricesArray.length);
    curr = curr.replace(/(\$[0-9]+\.[0-9]{2})+/g, pricesArray[price]);
    console.log(curr);
    $(this).html(curr); //update paragraph text
});

Upvotes: 0

Views: 64

Answers (1)

Paul Roub
Paul Roub

Reputation: 36448

$('*') will match <html>, <body>, etc. The first match (<html>) will perform the replacement on all prices in the page, since they're all contained within. Assuming the random string is not also a price, that's it, nothing left to replace.

You can do this instead by calling a replacement function for each match, instead of picking a new string for each node:

var pricesArray = ['thing one', 'thing two', 'thing three', 'thing four'];

var text = document.body.innerHTML;

text = text.replace(/(\$[0-9]+\.[0-9]{2})+/g,
  function() {
    var repno = Math.floor(Math.random() * pricesArray.length);
    return pricesArray[repno];
  }
);

document.body.innerHTML = text;
<p>$5.99</p>
<p><b>$7.97</b></p>
<p>A price ($14.92) within some text, followed by another price ($17.76).</p>

Upvotes: 1

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