How can I find a specific array assigned to a randomly selected variable?-CodePudding

So I'm trying to make a function for a text RPG that allows people to click a "wander" button and end up in a random location near their current one. I've created several arrays that contain the information for which locations are near others, and I'd like to be able to press a button, generate a new location, save that location as the current location, and generate a new wander result from the new location the next time the button is pressed.

//Starting area locations
    const startingAreaLocations = [Clearing, BigForrest, SmallForrest, Cliffs, Cave, Pond, Start, River, TownEnterance];
    const locationsNearStart = [BigForrest, Cliffs, Cave];
    const locationsNearBigForrest = [Start, Clearing, River];
    const locationsNearCliffs = [Start, Cave, River];
    const locationsNearCave = [Cliffs, Pond, River, Start];
    const locationsNearClearing = [BigForrest, River, Start];
    const locationsNearSmallForrest = [Pond, River, TownEnterance];
    const locationsNearPond = [SmallForrest, Cave, River];
    const locationsNearRiver = [BigForrest, Cliffs, Cave, Clearing, SmallForrest, Pond, TownEnterance];
    const locationsNearTowerEnterance = [SmallForrest, River];

My issue at the moment is that when I generate and load a new location, I don't know how to tell the system which array it should be referencing for the next locations. I tried to name the variables so that I could add the location name variable to a string and come out with the array name, but even when I put it through a JSON.parse(), it reads the string, not the contents of my array.

function wander(location) {
                wanderLocation = location[Math.floor(Math.random()*location.length)];
                console.log(wanderLocation);
                locationsNearCurrentArea = "locationsNear"   wanderLocation.name;
                console.log(locationsNearCurrentArea);
                
                callPannel(wanderLocation.string);
            }

How can I better make a feature that will let me bounce between locations like this?

CodePudding user response：

I would use an explicit data structure for this instead of a bunch of variables. A Map with the current location as key and nearby locations in an array as the value should suffice

const nearbyLocations = new Map([
//[ key,        [ values, ... ] ],
  [ Start,      [ BigForrest, Cliffs, Cave ] ],
  [ BigForrest, [ Start, Clearing, River ] ],
  [ Cliffs,     [ Start, Cave, River ] ],
  // etc
])

Then you can use something like this to get a random, nearby location

const wander = (currentLocation) => {
  const nearby = nearbyLocations.get(currentLocation)
  return nearby?.[Math.floor(Math.random() * nearby?.length)]
}

CodePudding user response：

const objectOfArrays = {
  "startingAreaLocations":['Clearing', 'BigForrest', 'SmallForrest', 'Cliffs', 'Cave', 'Pond', 'Start', 'River', 'TownEnterance'],
    "locationsNearStart":['BigForrest', 'Cliffs', 'Cave'],
    "locationsNearBigForrest":['Start', 'Clearing', 'River'],
    "locationsNearCliffs":['Start', 'Cave', 'River'],
    "locationsNearCave":['Cliffs', 'Pond', 'River', 'Start'],
    "locationsNearClearing":['BigForrest', 'River', 'Start'],
    "locationsNearSmallForrest":['Pond', 'River', 'TownEnterance'],
    "locationsNearPond":['SmallForrest', 'Cave', 'River'],
    "locationsNearRiver":['BigForrest', 'Cliffs', 'Cave', 'Clearing', 'SmallForrest', 'Pond', 'TownEnterance'],
    "locationsNearTowerEnterance":['SmallForrest', 'River']
}

console.log(objectOfArrays['startingAreaLocations']);
console.log(objectOfArrays['startingAreaLocations'][0]);