Breaking Records

#javascript #programming #beginners #tutorial

Prepare your favorite cup of coffee, because we are about to enter the fantastic world of Breaking records.

The problem

The solution

To start the solution, let's start by defining the breakingRecords function that will receive a scores parameter, which is an array of scores:

function breakingRecords(scores) {}

To save the best score, we will define the variable best, starting at 0, so it will consider the highest score so far:

var best = 0;

We will also define a variable to compute the worst score so far, which will be worst:

var worst = 0;

Next we will define the variable currentBest which will consider the first score in the scores array as the best score so far:

var currentBest = scores[0];

The variable currentWorst defines the current score as the worst score to date:

var currentWorst = scores[0];

Now let's go through the scores array, starting from the second element (i = 1), because the first element was already considered previously in the currentBest and currentWorst variables:

for (var i = 1; i < scores.length; i++) {}

Inside the loop we will perform validation, comparing the current value in the scores array with the currentBest variable:

if (scores[i] > currentBest) {}

If the condition is met, we will update the value of currentBest and increment the best variable to indicate that there has been a positive record break:

currentBest = scores[i];
best++;

If the previous condition is not met, we will compare the current value in the scores array with the currentWorst variable:

else if (scores[i] < currentWorst) {}

If the condition is met, we will update the value of currentWorst and increment the worst variable to indicate that there has been a negative record break:

currentWorst = scores[i];
worst++;

Finally, we will return an array containing the number of positive record breaks (best) and the number of negative record breaks (worst):

return [best, worst];

Final resolution

After following the step by step we have our final resolution:

function breakingRecords(scores) {
  var best = 0;
  var worst = 0;
  var currentBest = scores[0];
  var currentWorst = scores[0];

  for (var i = 1; i < scores.length; i++) {
      if (scores[i] > currentBest) {
          currentBest = scores[i];
          best++;
      } else if (scores[i] < currentWorst) {
          currentWorst = scores[i];
          worst++;
      }
  }

  return [best, worst];
}