jQuery dynamic number ticker

In this article A fascinating little script that helps you display a dynamic JSON feed of numbers that automatically updates on the page by animating up or down to the current number.

The JS Code

There are three functions in total. The first one ‘format_number’ which works the same as number_format(); in PHP adding the decimal places. In the ‘magic_number’ function then takes the current number and the new number and animates between them.

you have the ‘update’ function which retrieves the new data set of numbers via a JSONP feed. At the bottom of the script, you are refreshing the data every 4 seconds. Oh and don't forget to include the jQuery library.

counts = {};
 
      function format_number(text){
          return text.replace(/(\d)(?=(\d\d\d)+(?!\d))/g, "$1,");
      };
       
      function magic_number(element_name, value) {
          var elem = $(element_name);
          var current = counts[element_name] || 0;
          $({count: current}).animate({count: value}, {
                                      duration: 500,
                                      step: function() {
                                          elem.text(format_number(String(parseInt(this.count))));
                                      }});
                                      counts[element_name] = value;
      };
 
      function update() {
          var jqxhr = $.getJSON("number.php?jsonp=?", function(data) {
                               
                              magic_number("#number1", data[0]['n1']);
                              magic_number("#number2", data[0]['n2']);
                     });
      };
 
      setInterval(update, 4000);
      update();

The PHP

For example, number.php generates random numbers and returns them as a JSON object.  add as many numbers to the feed as you like, even retrieving data from a database, simply add extra values to the array below as shown commented out.

$total_data = array(
    array(
        'total' => rand(0,99999999),
        'twitter' => rand(0,99999999)
               // , 'dummy-entry' => $var
     ),
); 
echo $_GET['jsonp'].'('. json_encode($total_data) . ')';