Teacher struggling with Hackathon

CS Principles Coding and Debugging Help
1

Link to the project or level:**
**[https://studio.code.org/projects/applab/LHGxo418o4GSiOCoVXcUBvkLz-wZ4mWrQ_3g-afOleY]( https://studio.code.org/projects/applab/LHGxo418o4GSiOCoVXcUBvkLz-wZ4mWrQ_3g-afOleY**
What I expect to happen: I’m not sure if this will even work, but I want to randomly display a dog name and image based upon a list sorted first by size and then by type. I would love to make both filters happen at once, and attempted to base it off of the solution here: Unit 5 - Hackathon - dataset filter from multiple drop downs, but I couldn’t figure out how to have both dropdowns filter in the same function, since I need to have conditionals to establish size.
I thought maybe I could set up an if clause to first match anything that matches the type and then by size, but got nowhere with that.

So ….I first run a size filter and then the type, filtered off of the already filtered size list. I then want to update the screen with a random item from my twice-filtered list.

What actually happens: Nothing happens. It seems to be stuck on my type input dropdown, although I’ve triple-checked the syntax and don’t see that I’ve misspelled anything.

What I’ve tried: I’ve tried commenting out anything referring to the type filter all together to just type if the dog size filter works, but I can’t get that to run either. It keeps getting stuck on the dog type drop down, even when I comment it out.

I would appreciate any help. I’m trying to solve this while recovering from Omicron and my brain is just not wrapping around this at all. Thanks!

2

First, it looks like you have changed the column names in the database. Is that a plagiarism guard?

First off I would not run it without user input. So delete these lines:

//load the functions?
filterSize();
 findBreed();
 updateScreen();

The second problem is the findBreed() function doesn’t do what you think it does. filteredDogNames already has all the dogs of the proper weight in it. You then add a few more randomly chosen dogs.

You could just && the second requirement in.

function filterBySizeAndType(){
  for(var i=0; i<minWeight.length; i++){
      if(minWeight[i] < 15 && dogSize == "Small" && breed[i] == dogBreed){
        appendItem(filteredDogNames, dogName[i]);
        appendItem(filteredDogImages, dogImage[i]);
        appendItem(filteredDogBreeds, breed[i]);
      
      } else if(minWeight[i] >= 15 && minWeight[i]<50 && dogSize == "Medium" && breed[i] == dogBreed){
         appendItem(filteredDogNames, dogName[i]);
         appendItem(filteredDogImages, dogImage[i]);
         appendItem(filteredDogBreeds, breed[i]);
      } else if(minWeight[i] >= 50 && dogSize == "Large" && breed[i] == dogBreed){
           appendItem(filteredDogNames, dogName[i]);
           appendItem(filteredDogImages, dogImage[i]);
           appendItem(filteredDogBreeds, breed[i]);
    }
  }
}

Your third problem is with initialization. These variables:

var dogSize;
var dogBreed;

have no initial value. They are only given a value if you change the dropdown box. So one or both could be undefined when you press the generate button.

Your fourth problem is in updateScreen().

function updateScreen() {
  setScreen("screen2");
 // Selects a random number then sets the text to that number of the list.
  Random = randomNumber(0, filteredDogNames.length);
  for (var i = 0; i < filteredDogNames; i++) {
    if (filteredDogNames[i] == Random) {
      setText("filteredName", "Dog Breed: " + filteredDogNames[Random]);
      setImageURL("filteredImage", filteredDogImages[Random]);
    }
  }
}

You have this filteredDogNames[i] == Random will that ever be true? Let me be clear is "Akita" == 5 ever going to be true?

Besides, you don’t need to search if you already have the index. Why not just do this

setText("filteredName", "Dog Breed: " + filteredDogNames[Random]);
setImageURL("filteredImage", filteredDogImages[Random]);

and be done with it.

Your last problem is also in updateScreen(). Your random number can be one larger than the last index. So just subtract one Random = randomNumber(0, filteredDogNames.length-1);

Bonus problem: What do you do if the filtered list is empty?

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3

Thanks jdonwells! You are the bee’s knees. Among my many problems, my main one is that I don’t really know what I’m doing, but that’s why I am trying to figure it out and attempting to work my way through problems. I appreciate your help and all the answers that you have provided in this forum. I will make your suggested changes and work on what to do when my list is empty. I know that the size sort will work, but I’m not sure about the breed. I guess I could test it on its on and make sure that I can sort on those keywords. Thanks again!

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