I am working with some JavaScript code that is meant to extract the first and last elements from an array, then incrementally include the remaining elements.
For example:
var numbers = ['One', 'Two', 'Three', 'Four', 'Five', 'Six', 'Seven', 'Eight', 'Nine', 'Ten'];
var values = [];
values.push(numbers[0]); // get first
values.push(numbers[numbers.length-1]); // get last
numbers = numbers.slice(1, numbers.length-1); // remove first and last elements
console.log(numbers);
var interval = 2;
for (var i = interval; i < numbers.length; i+=interval) { // retrieve every 2nd item
values.push(numbers[i]);
}
console.log(values);
This code will yield:
["One", "Ten", "Four", "Six", "Eight"]
If we re-order these elements, we get:
["One", "Four", "Six", "Eight", "Ten"]
However, if the data set gets updated to include 'Eleven', it will result in:
["One", "Eleven", "Four", "Six", "Eight", "Ten"]
Re-ordering would give:
["One", "Four", "Six", "Eight", "Ten", "Eleven"]
The issue arises when items like Ten and Eleven end up next to each other without equal spacing as the rest of the elements.
To address this, I attempted to check if the array length is even and adjust the interval accordingly by making it odd, as shown below:
if (interval % 2 != 0)
interval = interval + 1;
However, there are situations where an uneven distribution still occurs due to how the array is sliced and processed. This leads to an element being positioned incorrectly in relation to the others based on the interval chosen.
How can I overcome this challenge? Essentially, I want to consistently select the first and last elements, while evenly distributing the middle elements based on a specified interval parameter.