I have a bit of code in Javascript, which returns true when it obviously shouldn't. For context: I have a mindmap and in order to find the most extreme coordinates of the map, I cycle through all nodes and check if this node has a higher/lower value than the currently highest/lowest value. When running the code the method returns wrong values and with console.log() I think I found something weird, but don't know how to fix it.
findMaxX(maxX){
console.log("this.x before test:"+this.x);
console.log("maxX before test:"+maxX);
if (this.x > maxX){
console.log("this.x:"+this.x);
console.log("maxX before:"+maxX);
maxX = this.x;
console.log("maxX after:"+maxX);
}
this.children.forEach(element => {
maxX = element.findMaxX(maxX);
})
return maxX;
}
What I find in the console is this:
maxX before test:360
this.x before test:288
maxX before test:360
this.x before test:64
maxX before test:360
this.x:64
maxX before:360
maxX after:64
this.x before test:65
maxX before test:64
It seems to be working just fine, but at some point the condition seems to return true for an obviously false statement. Is there some noob mistake I'm doing? Where can I search for errors? My code looks fine to me and I can't see a connection to the observed error. I'm happy for all hints! Thank you
It seems to me that this.x and maxX could be strings. And that's why you obtain these results. Here you can see these examples (run this code snippet):
let xNumber = 64, yNumber = 360;
let xString = "64", yString = "360";
console.log(xNumber > yNumber);
console.log(xString > yString);And read some information about the comparison of different types in JavaScript here
Also, as a suggestion to obtain what you need (if you want to compare these variables as numbers), I would advise converting them to Number, for example in this way:
if (parseFloat(this.x) > parseFloat(maxX)) {
// here your code
}