Odd bug in my javascript code

Question

Picture of problem: http://puu.sh/5spfQ.png

My first question here. I hope I can explain it to a decent extent, to give you an idea of what I'm trying to do.

I am working on a small javascript game, where the only objective is to make money. One of the methods to make money is by hiring workers. However, there's a problem. For instance we have Worker A and Worker B. For some odd reason, whenever Worker B mines something, Worker A also receives the mined ore (so both seem to always have the same amount of ore). I can't seem to figure out why this is; they should not be receiving each others ore.

Note: >hired< workers are stored in the "employed" variable.

The fun part, the code:

*This function fills in placeholders to the employed variable for each possible worker for hire. *

    //add "placeholder data" to prevent future undefined/errors
    //and makes future modification easier, specially in workerMain()
    var o = [];
    for(ore in ores){o[ore] = 0;}

    for(w in workers){
        employed[w] = [0, o];
    }

So our employed variable may look something along the lines of:

('miner a' => [0, ['coal_ore' => 0,'diamond_ore' => 0]], 'miner b' => [0, ['coal_ore' => 0, 'diamond_ore' => 0]])

Now once they are hired, a loop that is ran every second will determine how much ore they have mined, and it should put any worker's mined ore in their respective spot.

function workerMain(){
    setTimeout(function(){
        for(e in employed){
            var wObj = workers[e];
            var orePerSecond = Math.ceil(wObj.opm/60)*employed[e][0];
            var oresMined = generateOres(orePerSecond, wObj.pickaxe);

            //add newly mined ore count to worker's ore
            for(ore in oresMined){
                employed[e][1][ore] += oresMined[ore];

                //we aren't storing the ore, so let's go ahead and sell it
                money += ores[ore].worth*oresMined[ore];
            }
        }

        updateValues();
        workerMain();
    }, 1000);
}

But again, somehow if Miner A mines a coal ore, somehow Miner B will also get that coal ore.

Hope I've explained my problem thoroughly. If you can't seem to find the problem within this code, it may lie within these sibling functions:

http://pastebin.com/2WgT8Acg

The worker main I see a function called update values, any way we could see this as well? — Trendy
– Trendy, Commented Nov 25, 2013 at 0:38
You shouldn't be looping arrays with for...in but a regular for loop. Also you forgot to declare all the loop variables so they become implicit globals. — elclanrs
– elclanrs, Commented Nov 25, 2013 at 0:40
for (ore in ores) makes it look like ore is a property key, and o = [] followed by o[ore] makes it look like you think arrays are associative arrays... can I answer assuming this is the case? — sqykly
– sqykly, Commented Nov 25, 2013 at 0:42
@elclanrs Thanks! Will be sure to fix the declaration issues. And wouldn't say for...in/for is more of a preference thing? — user3029571
– user3029571, Commented Nov 25, 2013 at 0:43
NO! for(...in...) is different from for(). Please see es5.github.com and read very very thoroughly. — sqykly
– sqykly, Commented Nov 25, 2013 at 0:44

user1864610 · Accepted Answer · 2013-11-25 00:39:22Z

4

Arrays and objects in Javascript are passed by reference so in this code:

var o = [];
for(ore in ores){o[ore] = 0;}

for(w in workers){
    employed[w] = [0, o];
}

You're creating one variable o and assigning references to it to every miner. Ergo, every miner is updating the same set of ores.

You need to create a new array for each miner:

var o;

for(w in workers){
    o = [];
    for(ore in ores){o[ore] = 0;}
    employed[w] = [0, o];
}

I dare say some Javascript guru could make a more efficient version!

answered Nov 25, 2013 at 0:39

user1864610

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3 Comments

mu is too short Over a year ago

I'd probably recommend o = { } since o doesn't look like it is being used an array. Any solution will boil down to a for...in loop but some of the fancier ones will hide that behind $.extend, _.extend, ...

user3029571 Over a year ago

Woo-hoo! That was the problem. I did not know JavaScript did this. I appreciate the quick help and new knowledge. :)

Havenard Over a year ago

stackoverflow.com/questions/728360/…

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