Code 'n' Roll

How to use Rails Composer to create a rails app on Windows 7 64 bit

2014-10-31T01:52:00.001+01:00

Rails Composer is a great tool that helps you by creating a rails app with some standard configuration. Usually i start with Devise, Pundit, Simple Forms and Bootstrap 3.2.

But as usual it throws some common errors, some of which are really specific to Windows 7 64 bit.

First you should install ruby. I have version 2.0 installed. Follow instruction to also allow compilation of gems.

So let's say you start composer by running

rails new rvsp -m https://raw.github.com/RailsApps/rails-composer/master/composer.rb

The first error you will probably see is something like:

C:/Ruby200-x64/lib/ruby/2.0.0/net/http.rb:918:in `connect': SSL_connect returned=1 errno=0 state=SSLv3 read server certificate B: certificate verify failed (OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError)

This is cause by a ssl error. The solution is detailed in this article. What worked for me is downloading the cacert.pem file from here ( put it in your Ruby install folder ) and then run from the command prompt

set SSL_CERT_FILE=C:\Ruby200-x64\cacert.pem

this should fix it.

Then you will face the most dreaded problem, tzinfo. It will manifest itself when trying to access the db because rails will be run. You will see an error message like:

lib/ruby/gems/2.0.0/gems/tzinfo-1.2.2/lib/tzinfo/data_source.rb:182:in `rescue in create_default_data_source': No source of timezone data could be found. (TZInfo::DataSourceNotFound)

To solve this you must do the following:

1) after composer has started creating files, open your gemfile with a web editor and change the line

gem 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin]

to



gem 'tzinfo'

gem 'tzinfo-data', platforms: [:mingw, :mswin, :x64_mingw]

so you must add a gem and add x64 support

2) when the command prompts you for the database user, OPEN ANOTHER COMMAND PROMPT and cd into the folder where the app is and type the following



cd c:\appname

bundle install

bundle update

3) return to the other command prompt and enter the db credentials and you will be fine

hope this saves you some time.

Come fare una ricetta medica falsa

2013-04-03T17:18:00.002+02:00

Premesso che fare una ricetta medica falsa è un reato punibile dalla legge e che i farmaci vanno utilizzati con molta attenzione, poichè danno fortissima dipendenza ed effetti collaterali anche gravi, vorrei spiegarvi che fare una ricetta medica falsa è abbastanza facile.
La ricetta vi viene normalmente data dal vostro medico per farmaci che possono avere effetti collaterali anche gravi e serve al farmacista per essere tutelato. In pratica, se voi morite dopo aver preso un farmaco, se il farmacista ve lo ha prescritto senza ricetta, potrebbe essere responsabile della vostra morte e quindi teoricamente perseguibile.
In pratica una ricetta è semplicemente un foglio grande un quarto di un A4 con una intestazione e l'indirizzo di uno studio. Potete trovare degli esempi di ricettari medici facilmente su internet. Come nome, del medico, inventate pure, l'importante è che sia credibile.
Con una stampante e un po' di pazienza potete avere il vostro ricettario medico base in una mezz'ora. In realtà il ricettario e una biro bastano e avanzano per la maggior parte dei casi, ma vi consiglio di aggiungere un tocco di professionalità in più e investire anche una decina di euro per un timbro ove riportare le generalità del medico.
A questo punto, armatevi di una biro e scrivete la vostra ricetta/certificato medico di buona salute, è abbastanza facile, basta indicare sulla ricetta Nome, Cognome e data di nascita del paziente, nome del medicinale e principio attivo e posologia. Fate uno scarabocchio come firma, mettete un timbro e andate da un farmacista ( magari non chiedendo 5 boccette di minias in una sola volta ) e non avrete problemi.
Lo stesso vale per risparmiare 40€ di certificato medico di buona salute.
DISCLAIMER
Come detto io non incito nessuno ad andare contro la legge o ad assumere farmaci ( ho avuto io stesso problemi con i farmaci ), se poi finite dipendenti dalle benzodiazepine o avete un infarto in palestra, la colpa sarà solo vostra, usate il buon senso.

Tecnica del Tappetino, come investire in borsa guadagnando nelle fasi di lateralità del mercato

2012-08-28T14:19:00.000+02:00

Piccola premessa, questo post non è opera mia è ricavato dalla sapienza dei partecipanti al thread di Intesa San Paolo sul Forum Di Finanzaonline.
Il contenuto di questo post è stato ricavato da un post fatto sul thread. Ci sono anche altre versioni del tappetino, se vi interessa approfondiremo.
Se volete altro aiuto seguite il thread in questione. Di solito nel titolo si parla di "Zoccola" e di "Recchie", dovrebbe essere facile da trovare ;)
L’idea del tappetino è estremamente semplice. Identifichi un range in cui il titolo si muoverà in laterale, abbastanza ampio da poter ignorare oscillazioni anche molto violente. Attualmente il mio range su ISP è 0.9-1.9, conto che ci stia per tutto il 2012 almeno.
Dividi il range di un centesimo in pacchi, io ho fatto 70 pacchi, questo da’ uno step di 1.5 centesimi. Poi arriva il momento di determinare le quantità di ogni pacco. Io ho messo 350 pezzi per ogni pacco, perché altrimenti non avrei avuto capitale sufficiente per coprire il tappetino. Ovviamente, avendo soldi si possono aumentare quanto vuoi, ma io questi ho, e questi ho usato. Ultimo parametro: il take profit, che io ho messo a 4.6 centesimi.
Cosa significa tutto questo? Che io compro ogni 1.5 centesimi 350 ISP e vendo ogni pacco 4.6 centesimi sopra al prezzo di acquisto. Se scende, continuo a comprare ogni pacco, se sale vendo quelli che ho in pancia. Finchè rimane in laterale nel mio range, a qualunque prezzo sia, posso operare. Se dovesse sforare in su, niente di grave, ho solo capitale e devo riprendere un tappetino nuovo. Se dovesse sforare in giu… beh, poco da fare, fermo l’operatività finchè non torna in range, perché ho finito i soldi.

Per complicare un po’ le cose, il tappetino è incrementale, nel senso che ogni giro su un pacco determina un gain, che invece che essere prelevabile aumenta l’esposizione su quel pacco. Quindi, ne compro 350, ne vedo 350 ed ho 15 euro di gain. Al prossimo giro ne comprerò 362, ne venderò 362 con un gain ulteriore che aumenta ancora la quantità e così via. Non è anomalo vendere lo stesso pacco 7/8 volte in un mese.
Per complicarle ancora, il tappetino è out range. Quindi spesso compro 360 titoli e ne vendo solo 350, riducendo il gain ma accumulando 10 titoli che tengo lì. Al momento li sto accumulando per il range superiore (non avevo abbastanza titoli all’inizio per coprire tutto il range), quando avrò coperto il tappetino probabilmente accumulerò comunque titoli per il futuro.

How to spy on jQuery, jQuery selectors and jQuery functions with Jasmine

2012-06-08T15:45:00.001+02:00

I'm currently using Jasmine to introduce tests for javascript in our fantastic Wordpress plugin.
One big problem i had was testing jQuery calls like this one

var activate_saved_tab_on_page_load = function( active_tab ) {
    if ( active_tab === null ){
    // Activate the first tab
        $( 'ul.nav-tabs a:first' ).tab( 'show' );
    } else {
    // Activate the correct tab
        $( 'ul.nav-tabs a[href=' + active_tab + ']' ).tab( 'show' );
    }
};

How to test that? Then i found this really cool solution:

it( "Should show the first page if no cookie is present and null is passed to the function", function() {
    // Spy on the tab() method
    var tab = spyOn( $.fn, 'tab' );
    // Execute the function
    utility_functions.activate_saved_tab_on_page_load( null );
    // Check that the tab() method was called with the right parameter
    expect( tab ).toHaveBeenCalledWith( 'show' );
    // Check the jQuery selector was what we expected
    expect( tab.mostRecentCall.object.selector ).toEqual( 'ul.nav-tabs a:first' );
} );

The trick was to use tab.mostRecentCall.object.selector which refers to the jQuery selector and then use toEqual().

Hope this helps someone, feel free to share your jasmine tricks in the comments.

How to use the Facebook PHP - SDK (With code examples)

2012-05-27T21:37:00.001+02:00

My first big task while working for my new company was to integrate Facebook events into our wordpress plugin.
In this post i will shoe you how i solved some common problems that you usually face when using the Facebook Sdk for PHP.

LOGIN

Logging in the user is pretty straightforward and the example provided should be enough. What i did was creating a factory method to create an instance of the Facebook Class and add the token if present.

<?php
private function facebook_instance_factory() {
        require_once AI1EC_LIB_PATH . self::FB_SDK_PATH;
        // Get plugin settings.
        $plugin_settings = $this->get_plugin_settings( get_class( $this ) );
        // Set ssl verification to false to avoid problems.
        Facebook::$CURL_OPTS[CURLOPT_SSL_VERIFYPEER] = false;
        // Create our Application instance.
        $facebook = new Facebook(array(
                'appId'  => $plugin_settings[self::FB_APP_ID],
                'secret' => $plugin_settings[self::FB_APP_SECRET],
        ));

        // Retrieve the token from the configuration.
        $token = $this->get_plugin_variable( 'facebook-token' );

        // If the token was set, use it.
        if( $token ) {
            $facebook->setAccessToken( $token );
        }
        return $facebook;
    }
?>

In this way it's easy to check if we have a valid token and the user is logged in

<?php
$facebook = $this->_facebook;
        $user = $facebook->getUser();
        // We may or may not have this data based on whether the user is logged in.
        //
        // If we have a $user id here, it means we know the user is logged into
        // Facebook, but we don't know if the access token is valid. An access
        // token is invalid if the user logged out of Facebook.
        // Unfortunately this means an API call each time https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2011/05/13/how-to--handle-expired-access-tokens/
        if ( $user ) {
            try {
                $user_data = $facebook->api( '/me' );
                // If no exception is thrown we have a new valid token, save it
                $this->_token = $facebook->getAccessToken();
?>

As you read in the comment this means that you must make an API call each time to check if the user is logged in. This is insane for me so i saved all the data i needed in an object when the first call was made and then saved the object in session. Worked perfectly for me.

LOGOUT

Lots of people seem to have problems logging out people from facebook and so did i. I solved this by not using the example provided in the SDK, but simply treating the logout button as a standard "submit" and then redirecting the user to this function

<?php
    private function do_facebook_logout() {
        // Get an instance of the Facebook class
        $facebook = $this->facebook_instance_factory();
        // Destroy the session so that no Facebook data is held
        $facebook->destroySession();
        // Invalidate the Token
        $this->save_plugin_variable( self::FB_TOKEN, '' );
        // Delete the user saved in session
        unset( $_SESSION[self::FB_USER_SESSION] );
        // Get the logout URL from the Facebook Class
        $logout = $facebook->getLogoutUrl();
        // Redirect the user to the logout url, facebook will redirect him to our page
        wp_redirect( $logout );
    }

As you can see i used a wordpress function to do the redirect, but you could simply use header();

FQL MULTIQUERIES AND LIMITS IN FACEBOOK CALLS

It took me a little while to understand how to do multiqueries, but in the end they where very simple. This is how i built them.

<?php
private function generate_fql_multiquery_to_get_events_details( array $users ) {
        $fql = array();
        // When we make a query we must convert 
        $time = Ai1ec_Facebook_Event::get_facebook_actual_time();
        foreach( $users as $id ) {
            $fql[$id] = "SELECT
                            eid,
                            name,
                            description,
                            start_time,
                            end_time,
                            venue,
                            location,
                            update_time
                        FROM
                            event
                        WHERE
                            eid IN (SELECT eid FROM event_member WHERE uid = $id) AND start_time > $time" ;
        }
        return $fql;
    }
?>

As you can see it's a simple associative array where the keys are the identifiers of the query and the values are the query themselves. Then you can make the call like this

<?php
try {
            $events = $facebook->api( array(
                    'method' => 'fql.multiquery',
                    'queries' => $fql,
            ) );
        } catch ( FacebookApiException $e ) {
            throw $e;
        }
?>

To avoid overloading Facebook servers i found out that 200 queries per batch is considered safe if you don't nest queries. If you nest them it's hell. To limit to 200 i used array_chunk

CHECKING IF A FACEBOOK API EXCEPTION RELATES TO AUTHENTICATION

One thing i wanted to do was provide feedback if some kind of authentication error happened. I needed a way to recognize those from the common API exception you get from a call that is too slow. To use this i used the error code 190. Here is my catch block

<?php
catch ( FacebookApiException $e ) {
            if ( $e->getCode() === 190 ) {
                $message = __( "Something went wrong with Facebook authentication, try to log out and then login again", AI1EC_PLUGIN_NAME );
                $this->_error_messages = array_merge( $this->_error_messages, array( $message ) );
                $facebook->destroySession();
            } else {
                $message = __( "Something went wrong when retrieving data from Facebook. Try subscribing to fewer users", AI1EC_PLUGIN_NAME );
                $this->_error_messages = array_merge( $this->_error_messages, array( $message ) );
            }
        }
?>

as you can see i used the error code to determine what kind of exception has happened.
Of course if you have some trick to share, do it in the comments and of course correct me if you think that anything is wrong.
Hope this helps someone.

How to add syntax highlighting to your code in blogger when using dynamic views

2012-04-02T18:04:00.000+02:00

When i started using blogger i had a lot of trouble with pasting code snippets in my posts because i was using dynamic views and i couldn't use any of these tricks because i couldn't edit the html of my theme . I usually ended up copy / pasting code from jsfiddle.
Then i found a service that does online syntax highlighting and it worked perfectly! Now i just copy the html and i'm done!
Hope this helps someone.

A set of classes to render social buttons (Facebook Like, Google Plus, Twitter) in PHP

2012-04-02T17:43:00.000+02:00

When working on my latest project i had the need to include social buttons for the main social networking platform, Facebook, Google Plus and Twitter.
I decided that wanted something i could re-use in other projects and so i created a set of classes that work toghether.
You can find everything on my github profile, feel free to fork it, use it and comment it if you think thatthings sholud have been handled in another way.
I have a basic abstract class called SocialButtonAbstract that defines a constructor and a function to merge settings

<?php
abstract class SocialButtonAbstract {
    protected $settings;
    final function __construct(array $settings = null) {
        $this->_mergeSettings($settings);
    }

    protected function _mergeSettings(array $settings){
        if ($settings !== null){
            $this->settings = array_merge($this->settings, $settings);
        }
    }

    abstract public function renderButton(array $settings = NULL);
    abstract public function renderScript();
}
?>

All the buttons extend this base class and implement the method renderButton() (which produces the html of the button with all the settings in html5 data format) and renderScript() (which produces the <script> tag needed to load the javascript thatrenders the button).

I also created a simple helper class that renders a group of buttons and small Factory class that produces instances of the Plugins.

<?php
require_once "SocialPluginsHelper.php";
//Create the instance of the helper class and set some options
$socialPlugins = new SocialPluginsHelper(array(
        SocialPluginsHelper::HTML_AFTER_BUTTONS => '<div class="clear"></div>',
        SocialPluginsHelper::HTML_BEFORE_BUTTONS => '<div class="clear"></div>',
        SocialPluginsHelper::STYLE_OF_WRAPPER => 'margin-top:5px;',
        SocialPluginsHelper::CUSTOM_PLUGIN_STYLE => array(
                "TwitterButton" => "width:69px;",
                "FacebookLike" => "width:146px;")
)
);


//Add the buttons to the class
$socialPlugins->add(PluginFactory::create("FacebookLike", array(FacebookLike::FB_WIDTH => "146")));
$socialPlugins->add(PluginFactory::create("TwitterButton"));
$socialPlugins->add(PluginFactory::create("Gplus")); 

// render the javascripts for the buttons 
$socialPlugins->renderAllScripts();

/* Render the buttons (you can pass some options to the class to use

 * in the buttons, the main use case
 * for this is when you have multiple buttons on

 * the same page and you have to pass a different href to like */
$socialPlugins->renderAllButtons(array("FacebookLike" => array(FacebookLike::FB_HREF => $url)))

Of course you could avoid using the helper class and use the single classes directly. Hope this is of any use to you, feel free to leave feedback if you think something should be done in another way.

How to use variables in CSS using PHP

2012-03-21T23:45:00.000+01:00

My first assignement in my new job was mostly a front-end job, i had to work on two sites which share the codebase and most of the functionality but differ in some css colors. I didn't want to use less and i decided to write a simple class in PHP to handle the parsing of the CSS files.
You can find this class on github.

This is a really basic helper class that takes an associative arrays as a constructor parameter and then parses the files contained in the "/css" directory replacing the keys with the values.

Basic use.

Let's say whe have a style.css file in the "css/" directory which holds the following code

html, body{
  color:[textColor];
  background-color:[backgroundColor];
}

<?php
//This preloads and convert all files that are found in the "css/" directory
//you can change this parameter by changing the $cssDir private variable
$css = new Css(array("[textColor]" => "black", "[backgroundColor]" => "white"));
//This recreates the previously loaded and converted file files in the $outCssDir directory
$css->renderToFile();
?>

/* a file called style.css in the directory ../css 
 * that holds the following code has been created: */
html, body{
  color:black;
  background-color:white;
}

//this just echoes a <style> block
<? php $css->render(); ?>
//the following element is rendered

<style>
html, body{
color:black;
background-color:white;
}
</style>

How to merge two objects in javascript / jQuery adding the values of common properties (recursively)

2012-02-19T18:11:00.000+01:00

This blog post was inspired by this question on stackoverflow.com.

I'm going to show you how to merge two objects, adding (if they are numbers) or concatenating (if they are strings) the properties with the same name.

This will work recursively, so if both objects have a property called foo and foo is an object (in both the objects i want to merge) also the properties of foo will be merged.

Here is the code

//Let's create the namespace
var NICOLA = {};
NICOLA.is_object = function(mixed_var) {
  if (Object.prototype.toString.call(mixed_var) === '[object Array]') {
  return false;
  }
  return mixed_var !== null && typeof mixed_var == 'object';
}
//This is the main merge function
NICOLA.merge = function(a, b) {
  //create a cache object that will be returned
  var cache = {};
  //call the NICOLA.unpackObject function which does the dirty work on both objects
  cache = NICOLA.unpackObject(a, cache);
  cache = NICOLA.unpackObject(b, cache);
  //return the merged objects
  return cache;
}

NICOLA.unpackObject = function(a, cache) {
  for (prop in a) {
  //filter out properties inherited from the prototype chain
  if (a.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
  //if the cache objects doesn't contain the property, set it
  if (cache[prop] === undefined) {
  cache[prop] = a[prop];
  } else {
  //if the property is already set, check if the type of the colliding properties
  //is the same
  if (typeof cache[prop] === typeof a[prop]) {
  //if it is the same type, check if both preperties are objects
  if (NICOLA.is_object(a[prop]) && NICOLA.is_object(cache[prop])) {
  //if is an object, call recursively the NICOLA.merge to merge the object
  cache[prop] = NICOLA.merge(cache[prop], a[prop]);
  //check if the property is a number or a string
  } else if (typeof cache[prop] === 'number' || typeof cache[prop] === 'string') {
  //if it's a number, just sum the properties, if it's a string
  //concatenate it
  cache[prop] += a[prop];
  } else {
  //in all other cases, just use the newest value
  cache[prop] = a[prop];
  }
  }
  }
  }
  }
  return cache;
}
//this is a simple function to show all the properties of an object, recursively
NICOLA.printobject = function(c) {
  for (prop in c) {
  if (c.hasOwnProperty(prop)) {
  if (NICOLA.is_object(c[prop])) {
$('body').append('prop:[' + prop + '] is an object, we print the properties here
');
  NICOLA.printobject(c[prop]);
  } else {
  $('body').append('prop:[' + prop + '] - value:[' + c[prop] + ']
');
  }
  }
  }
}
//some setup, this object will be merged
var a = {
  en: 5,
  fr: 3,
  in : 9,
  lang: "js",
  object: {
  nestedProp: 6
  }

}
var b = {
  en: 8,
  fr: 21,
  br: 8,
  lang: "en",
  object: {
  nestedProp: 1,
  unique: "myne"
  }
}
//merge the objects
var c = NICOLA.merge(a, b)
//print the results
NICOLA.printobject(c);

This is the result on the screen:

prop:[en] - value:[13]
prop:[fr] - value:[24]
prop:[in] - value:[9]
prop:[lang] - value:[jsen]
prop:[object] is an object, we print the properties here

prop:[nestedProp] - value:[7]
prop:[unique] - value:[myne]
prop:[br] - value:[8]

As you can see preperties of the same type are added/concatenated recursively.

Here is a test fiddle for you. Any comments are welcome.

Porcelain Raft - Strange Weekends review - Album of the year so far

2012-02-10T21:41:00.001+01:00

First of all, as this is the first review of the blog, i will point out some things. I will review only music i like, i listen to every kind of music and if something strikes me i will post it here. No posts telling "How bad the new *** album is".

Porcelain Raft most distincitve trait is Mauro Remiddi's voice, which i could define only as spacy and etherial, and also definitely androginous, it's really something you should hear. I do fear that is something that you either will love or hate.

The tunes on the album are all good, my favourites are "Backwords" and the really psychedelic "Unless you speak from your heart" and the album clocks a reasonable 39 minutes which, for me, is the perfect length for an album. All my favourite albums are under the 50 miutes tag, i've never seen the need to go over that. Yes, Billy Corgan and Anthony Gonzales, i'm talking about you.

For me it's the best album of 2012 so far.
Here are some resources for you.

Porcelain Raft - "Put Me to Sleep" (Official Video)

Here are two really good tracks that you can download for free

Unless you speak from your heart
Put me to sleep

TRACKLIST

Drifting In And Out
Shapeless & Gone
Is It Too Deep For You?
Put Me To Sleep
Backwords
Unless You Speak From Your Heart
The End Of Silence
If You Have A Wish
Picture
The Way In

How to receive response from AJAX calls in jsfiddle using jQuery

2012-01-29T20:10:00.001+01:00

We all know and love jsfiddle, but sometimes it's difficult to set-up a fiddle, especially when we have to test a script which makes an AJAX call to our server.
Jsfiddle documentation (which is not so easy to find) provides an "echo feature" that helps you by "simulating" an answer from the server. Basically you get back what you send to a certain url and you can choose tha dataType that matches your test case, be it HTML, JSON or JSONP
Unfortunately the examples are all in MooTools, here i will explain how to do that in jQuery.

JSON

To make a JSON call you have to create a valid JSON to send to the server, and to do that i'm gonna use the jQuery - JSON library

  /**
  * create a data object to send to the server, it must have two properties
  * json: the encoded (i use jQuery - Json library to do that) JSON that you will receive back
  * delay: how long the server waits before responding in seconds
  */
  var data = {
  json: $.toJSON({
  text: 'Echo JSON'
  }),
  delay: 1
  }
  $.ajax({
  //post the request to /echo/json/ and specify the correct datatype
  url: '/echo/json/',
  dataType: 'json',
  data: data,
  success: function(data) {
  //you get back exactly what you sent in the json
  alert(data.text);
  $('#result').html(data.text);
  },
  type: 'POST'
  });

HTML

  //No need to encode this time, just set the html property of the object
  //to what you want back
  var data = {
  html: "

Text echoed back to request
",
  delay: 1
  }
  $.ajax({
  //post the request to /echo/html/ and specify the correct datatype
  url: '/echo/html/',
  dataType: 'html',
  data: data,
  success: function(data) {
  //As in the other example you get
  alert(data);
  $('#result').html(data);
  },
  type: 'POST'
  });

JSONP

  //this time you can use a standard javascript object
  //you get back everything you sent minus the delay property
  var data = {
  text: 'ECHO JSONP',
  par1: 'another param',
  delay:1
  }
  $.ajax({
  //this time you have to make a GET request to http://jsfiddle.net/echo/jsonp/
  url: 'http://jsfiddle.net/echo/jsonp/',
  dataType: 'jsonp',
  data: data,
  success: function(data) {
  //you get back the same object you sent minus the delay property
  alert(data.text);
  $('#result').html(data.par1);
  },
  type: 'GET'
  });

I'v also set-up a fiddle for you to check out. Hope this helps someone, any feedback is welcome.

How to find duplicates in an array in javascript / jQuery

2012-01-10T16:31:00.001+01:00

People sometimes wonder how to find duplicate elements in an array in javascript/jQuery.
Here i will show how you could do that leveraging the power of objects in javascript.
This will work for arrays that contain Strings, Number and Objects.
This code uses the JSON library which is natively supported in the following browsers:

Mozilla Firefox 3.5+
Opera 10.5+
Internet Explorer 8+
WebKit Based Browsers (e.g. Google Chrome, Apple Safari)

Or you could use Douglas Crockford JSON library for backword compatibility

var array = ['my', 2, 3, '3','3', 'youurs', 2, 6, { myProp : 1 }, { myProp : 1 }];
var length = array.length;

//The array ArrayWithUniqueValues will contain only one value for each entry of array
var ArrayWithUniqueValues = [];

//Object objectCounter will store the distinct values of array as property and
//the number of times they are present in array as values
var objectCounter = {};

for (i = 0; i < length; i++) {
  //First i stringify the current member of the Array, this will be the key
//that i will use to check if the value is already present
  var currentMemboerOfArrayKey = JSON.stringify(array[i]);
  //This is the value that i will store only once in ArrayWithUniqueValues
  var currentMemboerOfArrayValue = array[i];
  //I check if the property currentMemboerOfArrayKey of the object is undefined,
//which is the default value of unset properties
  if (objectCounter[currentMemboerOfArrayKey] === undefined){
  //If the property is undefined, this is the first time i have this value
//in the array, so i add it to ArrayWithUniqueValues
  ArrayWithUniqueValues.push(currentMemboerOfArrayValue);
  //I set the current key of the object to one: this is both for counting
//reasons and for avoiding duplicates because the next time
//objectCounter[currentMemboerOfArrayKey] === undefined will be false and
// the value will not be added to ArrayWithUniqueValues
objectCounter[currentMemboerOfArrayKey] = 1;
  }else{
  //The key was already present, augment the counter by one
  objectCounter[currentMemboerOfArrayKey]++;
  }
}
/*
If i output the value of objectCounter to the console i will have:
Value  Number of times present
2   2

3   1

6   1

"3"   2

"my" 1

"youurs"   1

{"myProp":1}   2
*/
console.log(objectCounter);
/* If i output the value of ArrayWithUniqueValues to the console i will have
["my", 2, 3, "3", "youurs", 6, Object { myProp=1}]
*/
console.log(ArrayWithUniqueValues);

Here is a link to a working jsFiddle example you can play with.

I hope the comments in the code are clear enough, if not, feel free to ask questions in the comments.

How to detect if an event is triggered programmatically in jQuery

2012-01-08T22:55:00.004+01:00

One question that sometimes pops-up on Stackoverflow is "How do i detect whether an event is triggered by the user or programmatically from other pieces of code"?
The answer is pretty simple, as the event handler (which right now, jQuery 1.7.1, is on() or it's shortand version like click(), but this method works also in legacy versions of jQuery) is always passed an event object as the first parameter.
There is one property of the event object, which is called originalEvent, that is of particular interest to us since this property is undefined if the event is triggered programmatically, otherwise it stores the original Javascript event.
This brings us to the code:

$( '#someElem' ).on('click', function ( e ) {
    if ( e.originalEvent === undefined ) {
        alert( 'triggered programmatically' );   
    } else {
        alert( 'clicked by the user' );   
    }
})

Here is a link to test jsfiddle. Feel free to comment.