How to calculate modulo of negative integers in JavaScript?

jeff picture jeff · Sep 4, 2013 · Viewed 10.1k times · Source

I'm trying to iterate over an array of jQuery objects, by incrementing or decrementing by 1. So, for the decrementing part, I use this code:

var splitted_id = currentDiv.attr('id').split('_');
var indexOfDivToGo = parseInt(splitted_id[1]);
indexOfDivToGo = (indexOfDivToGo-1) % allDivs.length;
var divToGo = allDivs[indexOfDivToGo];

so I have 4 elements with id's:

div_0
div_1
div_2
div_3

I was expecting it to iterate as 3 - 2 - 1 - 0 - 3 - 2 - etc..

but it returns -1 after the zero, therefore it's stuck. So it iterates as:

3 - 2 - 1 - 0 - -1 - stuck

I know I can probably fix it by changing the second line of my code to

indexOfDivToGo = (indexOfDivToGo-1 + allDivs.length) % allDivs.length;

but I wonder why JavaScript is not calculating negative mods. Maybe this will help another coder fellow too.

Answer

Rahul Tripathi picture Rahul Tripathi · Sep 4, 2013

You can try this :p-

Number.prototype.mod = function(n) {
    return ((this % n) + n) % n;
}

Check out this