Monday, September 04, 2017
Keeping Up with the Currencies
Blog Entry #379
In today's post we will discuss the Calendars, Clocks, and Calculators (CCC) sector's Money Conversion Script, which went live in November 1997 and was authored by "CompuH@cker". Per its label, the Money Conversion Script converts the number of units of a first currency to the corresponding number of units of a second currency.
The Money Conversion Script demo at the aforelinked moneyconv.html page works as advertised. To access the script's code, go to the JavaScript Goodies moneyconv.txt page: the corresponding page at Java Goodies is still available, but the code thereat is commingled with a bunch of Internet Archive-related stuff.
The script works with
(i) a set of world currencies that is nowhere close to being complete and
(ii) a set of relative currency values that is seriously out of date,
but that doesn't mean it can't serve as a starting point for the creation of a first-rate currency converter.
I/O structure
The user first enters a money number for a first currency into a MoneyFormIn text box.
<body>
<center>
<h1>Money Converter</h1>
<hr>
<form name="MoneyForm">
<input type="text" name="MoneyFormIn" size="20">Next, the user selects a first currency from a Unit selection list containing 69 currency options
<select size="1" name="Unit">
<option value="Alert" selected>- Choose Currency Unit Below -
<option value="2900.0000">DZD Algerian Dinars
<option value="170000.00">USD American Dollars
...67 more currency options...
</select>and then a second currency from a Unit2 selection list with a matching set of currency options.
• The absence of
</option> tags is legit but I myself would put them in.• For some reason I had it in my head that 1 is the default value of the select element's size attribute: not so, the default size is #IMPLIED.
Between the selection lists is a push button and a MoneyFormOut text box.
<hr><input type="button" value="Compute!" onclick="Compute( );">
<hr>
<input type="text" name="MoneyFormOut" size="20">
<select size="1" name="Unit2">
<option value="Alert" selected>- Choose Currency Unit Below -
<option value="0.0003500">DZD Algerian Dinars
<option value="0.0000060">USD American Dollars
...
</select></form>Clicking the button calls a Compute( ) function that via some simple arithmetic transforms the MoneyFormIn number to the equivalent money number for the Unit2 currency and subsequently displays the new number in the MoneyFormOut field.
<option> commentaryThe Unit and Unit2 menus include options for the Austrian schilling, the Belgian franc, the Cypriot pound, the Dutch guilder, the Finnish markka, the French franc, the German mark, the Greek drachma, the Irish punt, the Italian lira, the Luxembourg franc, the Portuguese escudo, the Slovakian koruna, and the Spanish peseta; however, Austria, Belgium, Cyprus, the Netherlands, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Portugal, Slovakia, and Spain now all use the euro. Relatedly, the menus also include a "European Currency Units" option: the European currency unit was the precursor to the euro.
The name of each option currency is prefaced by an identifying three-letter (ISO 4217) currency code. Some of these codes need to be updated:
ARP ARS Argentinian Peso
BRR BRL Brazilian Real
BGL BGN Bulgarian Lev
CSK CZK Czech Koruna
MXP MXN Mexican Peso
PLZ PLN Polish Zloty
ROL RON Romanian Leu
SUR RUB Russian Ruble
TRL TRY Turkish Lira
VEB VEF Venezuelan Bolivar
ZMK ZMW Zambian Kwacha
More changes from yesteryear to today:
XEC Eastern Caribbean Units → XCD Eastern Caribbean Dollar
XAU Gold Ounces (New York) → XAU Troy Ounce of Gold
XPT Platinum Ounces (New York) → XPT Troy Ounce of Platinum
XAG Silver Ounces (New York) → XAG Troy Ounce of Silver
SDD Sudanese Dinar → SDG Sudanese Pound
and of course
XEU European Currency Units → EUR Euro
Now, how 'bout them values? The Unit and Unit2 menus both use as a reference point the value of the Turkish lira ("lira" hereafter, given that Italy uses the euro), which was ranked as the world's least valuable currency in the mid-1990s. Specifically:
(1) For the Unit menu, each currency option value gives the value of the option currency relative to that of the lira, e.g., one Algerian dinar is 2900.0000 times more valuable than one lira.
(2) For the Unit2 menu, each currency option value gives the value of the lira relative to that of the option currency, e.g., one lira is 0.0003500 times as valuable as one Algerian dinar.
(My use of the present tense in the preceding sentences is a stylistic preference and is not meant to imply that the script's relative currency values are still correct.)
Each Unit2 currency option value is thus the reciprocal of its corresponding Unit currency option value.
As to where all those values came from, you'd have to ask CompuH@cker about that.
It's more fun to Compute( )
Input reading
The Compute( ) function first reads the MoneyFormIn value and assigns it to a MoneyValue variable.
function Compute( ) {
MoneyValue = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["MoneyFormIn"].value;After that Compute( ) gets the selectedIndexes of the Unit and Unit2 menus and respectively gives them UnitPlace and Unit2Place identifiers.
UnitPlace = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["Unit"].selectedIndex;
Unit2Place = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["Unit2"].selectedIndex;UnitPlace and Unit2Place are subsequently plugged into the menus' options[ ] collections so as to get the selected options' values, which are dubbed UnitValue and Unit2Value, and texts, which are dubbed UnitName and Unit2Name, respectively.
UnitValue = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["Unit"].options[UnitPlace].value;
Unit2Value = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["Unit2"].options[Unit2Place].value;
UnitName = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["Unit"].options[UnitPlace].text;
Unit2Name = document.forms["MoneyForm"].elements["Unit2"].options[Unit2Place].text;Validation
With the MoneyValue, UnitValue, and Unit2Value values in hand, Compute( ) displays a relevant alert( ) message if the user has left the MoneyFormIn field blank or has not selected a first or second currency.
if (MoneyValue == "")
window.alert("You must choose an amount to convert.");
else if (UnitValue == "Alert")
window.alert("You must choose a first currency.");
else if (Unit2Value == "Alert")
window.alert("You must choose a second currency.");Oh, and what if the user enters Hello World into the MoneyFormIn field? I'll show you an easy way to deal with other non-numeric MoneyValues later.
Money conversion
The validation if...else if...else if cascade is followed by a concluding else clause that gets down to the brass tacks of mapping the MoneyValue value to its value in the second currency. The MoneyValue numeric string is first type-converted to a Money number via the top-level eval( ) function.
else { Money = eval(MoneyValue);If for whatever reason the user selects the same currency from the Unit and Unit2 menus, then Money is whisked to a roundToPennies( ) function that truncates and rounds a relevant floating-point number at the hundredths place (e.g., 2.3456 → 2.35); the roundToPennies( ) return is written to the MoneyFormOut field.
if (UnitName == Unit2Name)
document.forms["0"].elements["MoneyFormOut"].value = roundToPennies(Money);
/* The 0 forms[ ] index doesn't need to be stringified. */We'll address the roundToPennies( ) function - and its Number.toFixed( ) equivalent - in our next episode, but for now let's keep going. If the first and second currencies are different,
then the UnitValue and Unit2Value numeric strings are respectively type-converted to ToTRL and FromTRL numbers
else {
ToTRL = eval(UnitValue);
FromTRL = eval(Unit2Value);and then Money is multiplied by ToTRL so as to give a TRL number of lira
TRL = Money * ToTRL;and then TRL is multiplied by FromTRL so as to give a Money amount of the second currency
Money = TRL * FromTRL;and finally the new Money number is formatted by the roundToPennies( ) function and the roundToPennies( ) return is written to the MoneyFormOut field à la the preceding if clause.
document.forms["0"].elements["MoneyFormOut"].value = roundToPennies(Money); } } } /* That's it for Compute( ). */
I'll put forward an alternative coding for the Money Conversion Script in the following entry.
- posted by A. Peak @ 5:22 PM
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