Javascript help

[Necro]

I'm a complete newbie to javascript, and i'm trying to figure something out. I figured I'd ask here to see if anybody can help, as I'd assume some of you can build websites and stuff

I want to know if it is possible to call a function by using a variable that has the same value as the name of the function. What I am trying to do is make a certain function be executed depending on the date, so if it was April 25th (today), the function "april25()" would run. I'm trying to achieve this by storing the date as a variable and referencing the variable instead of the function name, but I can't figure out how to get it to work, and am now wondering if it's even possible

Hope that's coherent

[rjessop]

I haven't written any Javascript in years, but this might work and is totally untested:

o = new Object();
o.april25 = function () { alert("Today is April 25th"); };

var todaysDate = "april25"; //Presumably you are getting the date somehow

if( todaysDate in o )
{
o[todaysDate]();
}

[Necro]

Cheers, I'll try and test it and see if it works.

Edit: on it's own, it works. now to try and mash it into my existing code and try that. Thanks

Edit2: I think i've got it working as intended, after being an idiot for longer than I should have been. Thanks again

[rjessop]

Pretty surprised that worked

[Necro]

haha, it's working dandy
the only issue now is that my work is made infinitely more tedious due to the lack of .txt read support in javascript, but eh, I can work around it.

I'm sure professional web developers would commit seppuku upon seeing it though.

[happosai]

You could use the eval() function, which takes a string as its argument and executes its contents as code, e.g.

x = "april25";
eval(x + "()");

However, what you're trying to do is generally a bad idea and can usually be accomplished in a far more elegant fashion.

[Happosai]

[Necro]

Yeah, It's a really stupid botch job i've got running. To do what I want properly i'd need to learn a server script like PHP or something, but I really don't understand the syntax or anything, so I'll just do it this way

I mean, because of the text file thing, I've got it displaying javascript files for the data. That surely isn't a good move

It's only as a little project to help me learn though, so it's nothing major.

[donmurray29]

try creativecow.net, lynda.com, adobe forums, youtube for downloading tutorials, best thing is copying the script you like from the web site

[megalomaniac]

How did I miss this? A programming thread is not complete without my input Although happosai pretty much covered it.

If you want to do something useful/cool with your new found JavaScript knowledge get reading up on AJAX & PHP or Ruby on Rails. That's the good shit

[Necro]

I was trying to learn some php for the whole file reading job i'd like doing (it would make alot of the Javascript redundant) but I couldn't figure it out for either text files or, a bit more complex, excel spreadsheets. It didn't help I'm really not sure on how to test php script on my desktop pc, as obviously it's not a server, nor do I know how to install it.

bleh

[megalomaniac]

You're a Windows man right? If so you'll need IIS running & PHP installed, plenty of tutorials on the web for that. If you need a hand with PHP code drop me a PM or Tweet or something. I've done a lot of PHP over the years, coming from a C/C++ background it makes a great deal of sense to me.

[Necro]

Awesome, I'll have a look and mess around with that when i'm back from college.