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JavaScript

Dorota Parzych
Dorota Parzych
5,706 Points
Posted by Dorota Parzych
Dorota Parzych
5,706 Points

task with initials

Hi! I'v wanted to write a function that converts a name into initials.

The output should be capital letters with a dot separating them.

It should look like this:

Sam Harris => S.H

Patrick Feeney => P.F

My code looks like this and it doesn't work (There is a space in between )

function abbrevName(name){
var initials =[];
  for(var i=0; i<name.length; i++){

    if( (name[i] != ' ') && (i!=0) ){
      if(name[i] === name[i].toUpperCase() ) {
      initials += '.'+name[i];
      }

      }else{
        initials += name[i];

    }


  }



return initials;
}

console.log(abbrevName('Harrison Ford'));

1 Answer

Zimri Leijen
Zimri Leijen
11,835 Points

You're making it pretty hard for yourself.

Why not just seperate the name into words by using split?

You can split at the space, to get an array of words (in this case, an array of names). Then you loop over the array and take just the first letter of each (the initial) and add a period.

Then return the result.

Also, if you want a placeholder that is meant to hold strings, use an empty string, not an empty array. An array will work, but it just makes it look confusing.

Dorota Parzych
Dorota Parzych
5,706 Points
Dorota Parzych
Dorota Parzych
5,706 Points

So I have changed the code... the part with adding the period still confuses me though... I think that it could be done differently... Anyway...everything would work fine but the output is: "undefinedH.B.F"

function abbrevName(name){
var initials;
var words = name.split(' ');

  for(var i=0; i<words.length; i++){
    if (i!=0){
      initials += '.' + words[i][0];
    }else{
      initials += words[i][0];
    }

  }

  return initials;


  }

console.log(abbrevName('Harrison Ben Ford'));
Zimri Leijen
Zimri Leijen
11,835 Points

Good progress,

one way of fixing the 'undefined' and the . would be to do it like this:

function abbrevName(name){
var initials = ''; // having an empty string here prevents it from appending to undefined
var words = name.split(' ');

  for(var i=0; i<words.length; i++){
    if (i!=0){
      initials += words[i][0] + '.'; // adding the dot at the end makes sure the dot is at the right place
    }else{ // the else is actually unnecessary now, as it does the same in both cases. (Unless you want to not have the dot in the end, in which case you need to avoid placing the dot for the last value only)
      initials += words[i][0] + '.';
    }

  }

  return initials;

  }

console.log(abbrevName('Harrison Ben Ford'));

There's also another thing you can do, which is basically the opposite of split.

That way, you'd store the initials in an array, and in the end you join the array with initials.join('.').

Like so:

function abbrevName(name){
  var initials = []; // an array this time, since we'll be storing them temporarily in an array
  var words = name.split(' ');
  for(var i=0; i<words.length; i++){
    initials.push(words[i][0]);
  }
  return initials.join('.');
}

console.log(abbrevName('Harrison Ben Ford'));

note that in this way, if you want the dot at the end, you'd have to add it.