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I am creating a wordsearch generator with JavaScript I created the function that places the word, it is working as expected but I created a list of words to add them to the wordsearch in a forloop the problem it's that it just adds one word

this is the code I wrote

function placeWord(p,grid) {

    for (i=0;i<p.length;i++) {

    grid[p[i][0]][p[i][1]] = p[i][2]

    }

}

function tryPlaceWord(word, grid, width, height) {

    let s = 0

    var directions = [[0,1], [1,0], [1,1]]

    var choices = [word, word.split("").reverse().join("")]

    var word = choices[Math.floor(Math.random() * 2)]

    while (s<2) {

       var direction = directions[ Math.floor(Math.random() * 3)   ]

       var x = Math.floor(Math.random() * width)

       var y = Math.floor(Math.random() * height)

       var ystart = y+word.length > height ?  y-word.length:y  

       var xstart = x+word.length > width ?  x-word.length:x

       var positions = []

       for (i=0;i<word.length;i++) {

           if (xstart < 0) {

           break

           }

       if (ystart<0) {

           break

      }

          var xpos = xstart + i * direction[1]

      var ypos = ystart +i * direction[0]

      pos = grid[ypos][xpos]

      if (pos == "*" || pos == word[i]) {

        positions[i] = [ypos, xpos, word[i]]

    } else {

        positions.length = 0

        break

    }

       }

       if (positions.length == word.length) {

       placeWord(positions,grid)

       console.log(positions)

       return true 

       }

    s+=1

    }

}

function show(grid) {

    for (i=0;i<grid.length;i++) {

    console.log(grid[i].join(" "));

    }

}

function makeGrid(width, height) {

    var grid = []

    for (i=0;i<height;i++) {

    grid[i] = []

    for (y=0;y<width;y++) {

        grid[i][y] = "*"

    }

    }

    return grid

}

function main() {

    var width = 15

    var height = 15

    var grid = makeGrid(width, height)

    var words = ["alexander", "camila", "pedro", "luis", "maria"]

    for (i=0;i<words.length;i++) {  

    console.log(words[i])

        tryPlaceWord(words[i],grid,width, height)

    }

    show(grid)

}

main()

any help would be really appreciated

Alexander Ortiz Cuellar
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    This is a good opportunity for you to start familiarizing yourself with [using a debugger](https://stackoverflow.com/q/25385173/328193). When you step through the code in a debugger, which operation first produces an unexpected result? What were the values used in that operation? What was the result? What result was expected? Why? To learn more about this community and how we can help you, please start with the [tour] and read [ask] and its linked resources. – David Mar 09 '23 at 12:29

1 Answers1

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Gooood afernoon

TLDR; You need to initialize your for-loop counters with the let-keyword

when you write

for(i = 0; i < 5; i++) { /* do something */ }

it get's interpreted as

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) { /* do something */ }}

A simple example of why that is annoying in your case is becase var is stored at the outer most lexical scope.

console.log(i) // undefined

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) { /* do something */ }

console.log(i) // 5

// i = 5 here, so the next loop reads that '5 < 5' -> false, so it doesn't execute

for (var i = 0; i < 5; i++) { /* do something */ }

when using let i does not get hoisted and is bound to the scope of the for-loop

console.log(i) // undefined

for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) { /* do something */ }

console.log(i) // undefined

// the next for loop initializes i to 0 again
for (let i = 0; i < 5; i++) { /* do something */ }
TiesDO
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