jQuery custom wrapper method only works half the time

[Joe Lemmer]

Hi there,

I'm writing a jquery wrapper method which takes a figure eg 1234567.89 from a input box and replaces it with a formatted currency string eg £1,234,567.89 and vica versa.

It SHOULD be working...lol. But isn't.

Basically the way the method works is that it takes whatever is in the input box and reduces it to just numbers a decimal point (.) and two more numbers after the decimal place. This is asigned to the 'result' variable.

Then if the 'direction' option has 'toCurrency', then the necessary commas and currency symbols are added.

The method works fine of the 'toCurrency' option is chosen, but not if it is left out. This is very strange because I have used alerts to check the value of the result variable before the 'if' and I have the correct value. If the 'toCurrency' option is not chosen, it should just miss the 'if' and use the result value which I have just checked on. But it doesn't. I have put an alert at the end of the if statement and it prints out the correct answer if the 'toCurrency' option is chosen, but prints nothing if it is not. Strange. I wonder if anyone can see my mistake? Here is my code:

(function($)  {
    $.fn.currency = function(options)  {
	    var result = $(this).val();
		result += '';
		var floatNumber = '';
		var toFloatRegex = /\d|\./;
		for(var i = 0; i < result.length; i++)  {
		    if(toFloatRegex.test(result.charAt(i)))  {
			    floatNumber += result.charAt(i);
			}
		}
		result = parseFloat(floatNumber);
		result = result.toFixed(2);
                alert(result);
		if(options.direction == 'toCurrency')  {
		    alert("In here");
			var commaCur = '';
			var x = result.split('.');
			var mod3 = x[0].length % 3;
			if(mod3 == 0) mod3 = 3;

			for(var j = 1; j < x[0].length + 1; j++)  {
			    commaCur += x[0][j - 1];
			    if(((j - mod3) % 3) == 0 && j != x[0].length) 
				    commaCur += ',';
			}

			commaCur += '.';
			commaCur += x[1];
			result = commaCur;	    
			if(options.hasSymbol)  {
		        result = options.symbol + result;
		    }
		}

		alert("Result is " + result);
		$(this).val(result);
	};
})(jQuery);    

Many thanks

Joe

[Joe Lemmer]

I've got this working now, but I'm not exactly sure why. Basically, when I wanted to convert to a currency with commas etc, I was using a command such as:

$('#box').currency({direction : 'toCurrency', hasSymbol : true, symbol : '£'});   

whereas I thought it would be fine when I wanted to convert back to a float just to use a command such as:

$('#box').currency();    

which doesn't have any options, but in fact it seems to need some sort of options so the following works:

$('#box').currency({direction:'toFloat'});    

I need to read up about putting in default values. I know I've seen something in the jQuery in action book.

[Bear Bibeault]

Joe Lemmer wrote:I need to read up about putting in default values. I know I've seen something in the jQuery in action book.

Chapter 7.

[Joe Lemmer]

Thanks Bear :-)