Error: Unable to access the 'length' property of an undefined value | Solving the challenge of finding the shortest word within a string | Codewars Problem

Question

Error: Unable to access the 'length' property of an undefined value | Solving the challenge of finding the shortest word within a string | Codewars Problem

I'm currently working on a function to find the shortest word in a given string of words.

Issue: I encountered the error below

TypeError: Cannot read property 'length' of undefined at findShort at Test.describe._ at /runner/frameworks/javascript/cw-2.js:152:11 at Promise._execute at Promise._resolveFromExecutor at new Promise at Object.describe at /home/codewarrior/index.js:24:10 at /home/codewarrior/index.js:28:5 at Object.handleError

Below is the code snippet in question

findShort("turns out random test cases are easier than writing out basic ones");

function findShort(s){

  let array = s.split(" ");
  let shortestWord = array[0];
  
  for (i = 0; i < array.length; i++) {
    let str = array[i + 1];
    
    if (shortestWord.length > str.length) {
      shortestWord = str.length;
    }
    
  }
  
  return shortestWord;
}

javascript

Answer 1

Answer №1

Upon review, I have identified two issues:

The line let str = array[i + 1] may return undefined during the final iteration of the loop when i is equal to or exceeds the array length. To address this, consider adjusting the loop condition to i < array.length - 1.
Additionally, the current implementation assigns the word's length to the variable shortestWord, instead of the word itself as intended.

To incorporate these modifications, you can update your code as follows:

function findShort(s) {

  let array = s.split(" ");
  let shortestWord = array[0];
  
  for (i = 0; i < array.length - 1; i++) { // Adjusted loop condition to prevent out-of-bounds access.
    let str = array[i + 1];
    
    if (shortestWord.length > str.length) {
      shortestWord = str; // Correctly assigning the word to the variable.
    }
    
  }
  
  return shortestWord;
}

const result = findShort("turns out random test cases are easier than writing out basic ones");
console.log(result);

Answer 2

Upon review, I have identified two issues:

The line let str = array[i + 1] may return undefined during the final iteration of the loop when i is equal to or exceeds the array length. To address this, consider adjusting the loop condition to i < array.length - 1.
Additionally, the current implementation assigns the word's length to the variable shortestWord, instead of the word itself as intended.

To incorporate these modifications, you can update your code as follows:

function findShort(s) {

  let array = s.split(" ");
  let shortestWord = array[0];
  
  for (i = 0; i < array.length - 1; i++) { // Adjusted loop condition to prevent out-of-bounds access.
    let str = array[i + 1];
    
    if (shortestWord.length > str.length) {
      shortestWord = str; // Correctly assigning the word to the variable.
    }
    
  }
  
  return shortestWord;
}

const result = findShort("turns out random test cases are easier than writing out basic ones");
console.log(result);

Answer 3

Answer №2

Here is a more streamlined solution to achieve the desired outcome:

console.log(findShortestWord("turns out random test cases are easier than writing out basic ones"));

function findShortestWord(sentence){
  let input = sentence;
  let wordsArray = input.split(" ");
  
  var shortestWord = wordsArray.reduce((shortest, current) => {
    return current.length < shortest.length ? current : shortest;
  }, wordsArray[0]);
  return shortestWord;
}

Link to JSFiddle Demo

Answer 4

Here is a more streamlined solution to achieve the desired outcome:

console.log(findShortestWord("turns out random test cases are easier than writing out basic ones"));

function findShortestWord(sentence){
  let input = sentence;
  let wordsArray = input.split(" ");
  
  var shortestWord = wordsArray.reduce((shortest, current) => {
    return current.length < shortest.length ? current : shortest;
  }, wordsArray[0]);
  return shortestWord;
}

Link to JSFiddle Demo

Error: Unable to access the 'length' property of an undefined value | Solving the challenge of finding the shortest word within a string | Codewars Problem

I'm currently working on a function to find the shortest word in a given string of words.

Answer №1

Answer №2

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