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13 useful JavaScript array tips and tricks you should know

Duomly on October 21, 2019

This article was originally published at: https://www.blog.duomly.com/13-useful-javascript-array-tips-and-tricks-you-should-know/ An array is one ...

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Maxence Bouret • Oct 21 '19

Thanks for the article :)

Tip 11 (Reversing an array) is also modifying the original array colors.

Instead, if I don't want to change the original array, I would write:

var colors = ["blue", "white", "green", "navy", "pink", "purple", "orange", "yellow", "black", "brown"];
var reversedColors = [...colors].reverse();
console.log(reversedColors); // returns ["blue", "white", "green", "navy", "pink", "purple", "orange", "yellow", "black", "brown"]

catalin560 • Oct 23 '19

or colors.slice().reverse() works too

willsmart • Oct 21 '19

Tip 10 has an off-by-one error going on: there's no need to add one to colors.length since it's already one more than the highest index.

Great tips though! I didn't know about the array.length = 0 one and will use it for sure.

Duomly • Oct 21 '19

Thanks for suggestion

Gabriel Pinheiro • Oct 21 '19

Great article!
I love how you mentioned the arr.length = 0;, I've seen obj.arr = []; so many times, messing up references is just a matter of time with the latter.

A nice addition would be to change the 8. Find the intersection of two arrays to do it the other way around as Array.prototype.includes is linear and Set.prototype.has is constant, for larger lists a big difference can be noticed:

let firstValues = [...new Set(numOne)];
let duplicatedValues = numTwo.filter(item => firstValues.has(item));

instead of:

var duplicatedValues = […new Set(numOne)].filter(item => numTwo.includes(item));

Srđan Međo • Oct 24 '19

You spread Set into an array, so array won't have has method on it. Small bug on your side.

Gabriel Pinheiro • Oct 25 '19

Oh you're right, first line should have been:

let firstValues = new Set(numOne);

Thanks for pointing that up

Andrew Bogushevich • Nov 8 '19 • Edited

numOne = [1, 2]
numTwo = [1, 3, 1]

// original
let duplicatedValues = […new Set(numOne)].filter(item => numTwo.includes(item));
// [1]

// your
let firstValues = new Set(numOne);
duplicatedValues = numTwo.filter(item => firstValues.has(item));
// [1, 1]

to solve this we need either to create second Set or to use includes instead of has

Adam Culpepper • Oct 21 '19 • Edited

“ and ” need to be converted to regular double quotes (") or single quotes so your code can be copy/pasted into the console without having to convert them all.

the character you used for the spread operator (…) needs to be converted to three periods (.) for copy/paste purposes. I think it's also important to note in the article that the spread operator is ES6.

grammar/word errors:
"Get random value form the array" title > needs to be "from array"

Great article, thanks for posting! :)

more-urgent-jest • Oct 24 '19

yes, I totally agree that if you are going to have code in your article make sure that it's valid!!! that's more important than it being pretty. you could use codepen or similar to ensure it actually runs.

Alex K. • Oct 21 '19

Nice list!

Point 3 is more useful when applied to array-like objects, e.g. NodeList, since you can transform them into arrays and map the items to new values at the same time.

sakhmedbayev • Nov 11 '19 • Edited

Thanks for the post! I need, however, to point out that the solution for finding an intersection array (#8) not quite correct. Try to find an intersection array for these two arrays using your solution:

[1, 1, 1, 2, 1, 3, 4, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 4, 5, 6],
[2, 2, 2, 1, 1, 6, 7, 8, 2, 2, 2, 2]

the output is [ 1, 2, 6 ] when actually it supposed to be [ 1, 1, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, 6 ] (sorted version)

The Set does not work well to find a proper intersection array.

iamndeleva • Oct 21 '19

Hello ...i want to learn js can someone share with me a tutorial or course

Jacob Hanko • Oct 21 '19

You will be able to find all different kinds of tutorials out there for JavaScript, ranging from books to video courses. Here are a few to get you started, but I suggest finding a tutorial that complements your own personal learning style.

iamndeleva • Oct 21 '19

Thanks

Duomly • Oct 22 '19

We have interactive and building real projects courses, you can take a look if you like that (we can give discounts for dev.to) :)

iamndeleva • Oct 22 '19

Where are the link for rhe courses

Duomly • Oct 22 '19

You can find Duomly on duomly.com

leandrolink • Oct 29 '19

Try freecodecamp.org/ . I really enjoyed that course!

Rahul Kumar Lal • Jan 8 '20

try freecodecamp => freecodecamp.org/learn/javascript-...

vijo • Oct 23 '19

Thanks for the article. Very useful tips in the article as well as the comments!

One query - If i have a two dimensional array (m rows and n columns) - what is the fastest way to create another array with retaining just some selected columns and dropping the others?

zsivm • Oct 22 '19 • Edited

Nice post, very useful tips and tricks, thanks. I have found a typo in paragraph 3 in the last part. You wrote: ... user .from() method, instead of use.
In point 9 first row you wrote defined, in point 10 title there is form

Duomly • Oct 22 '19

Thanks for pointing, going to fix :)

zsivm • Oct 22 '19

Hi. Sorry for pointing them out individually. I just reached the end. I found another typo in the conclusion, 13 tips and tricks with, instead od which. You are welcome, would like to read from you again :)

Darryl Young • Nov 15 '19

Great article. Thanks for sharing.

Ali Nazari • Nov 3 '19

Hi. Great article. I'm willing to translate it into Persian and share it on my blog. I hope you are content :)

Duomly • Nov 3 '19

Of course! If you will give link to author duomly.com we are very happy to accept that :)

Ali Nazari • Nov 4 '19 • Edited

Thanks. Here is the link. I mentioned you at the bottom of article:

ditty.ir/posts/12-useful-javascrip...

Duomly • Nov 4 '19

Cool, It's nice we inspired you :)

Claudine • Oct 31 '19

Great article! My favorite trick : array.length = 0 💯

Duomly • Oct 31 '19

Thanks Claudine, we are very happy you like our article! :)

MinhPN • Oct 21 '19

Great!

Nithish Kumar • Dec 26 '20

Hello everyone,, I want answer for this problem in JavaScript.
const a = 'abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz'
//Result
['abc','def','ghi',....]
Can someone explain!??
Thanks in Advance 🙂🙂

Sekti Wicaksono • Dec 30 '20

it looks like slicing the output into 3chars-of string

Nithish Kumar • Dec 30 '20

S,, finally I did that... ;)

Martin Nepita • Jan 17 '20

Thanks for the article, this is just what I needed !

K-Sato • Oct 21 '19

Awesom!!

Duomly • Oct 22 '19

Thanks!

Kevin Silvestre • Oct 21 '19

As a student , I love this article. My fav cheat sheet .

Kamran Fazal • Dec 1 '19 • Edited

Wonderful and Informative.

Keep it up to share your knowledge and tricks.

Thank you.

Basem Mostafa Mahmoud • Oct 24 '19

That was a very helpful article. I did not know before that I could empty an array by assigning its length to zero! Thanks for the article!

anudeepdasari • Oct 22 '19

Tip 3 is awesome. Never knew till the time that Array.from takes a second argument a function that would replicate .map functionality. Good One !!!

Chridas • Jan 5 '20

Thanks for the article! Really helpful!

Nicholas Ferrer • Oct 21 '19

Nice article! I loved the fifth tip

Michael J Salo • Jan 9 '20

It's interesting - but what would be a use case for such an object?

{0: “banana”, 1: “apple”, 2: “orange”, 3: “watermelon”, 4: “apple”, 5: “orange”, 6: “grape”, 7: “apple”}

It's still indexed like an array, but is no longer a real array.

Deepak Sisodiya • Oct 29 '19

This is a very good article. well written article.

Alex Muraro 🇪🇺 • Oct 22 '19

Nice article

Duomly • Oct 22 '19

Thanks :)

Abdullah Furkan Özbek • Jan 25 '20 • Edited

arr.filter(Boolean) is amazing 😯
Thanks for the article

Froxx93 • Oct 23 '19

I didn't know about the second parameter of Array.from() as well, but I don't actually see a reason to use it instead of Array.map() in any situation.

Michael J Salo • Jan 9 '20

MDN says, "Array.from(obj, mapFn, thisArg) has the same result as Array.from(obj).map(mapFn, thisArg), except that it does not create an intermediate array." This suggests it might perform a little better, in extreme cases.

James Thomson • Oct 28 '19

FYI, #4 "Empty an array" will create a holey array. It's better to assign the value a new empty array [] rather than mutate the length. More on element kinds: v8.dev/blog/elements-kinds

Antonio Yon • Oct 30 '19

Why would setting the length of an array to 0 make it holey? I would understand if you were to set the length to a value greater than its content, it would create a HOLEY_ELEMENTS. Truncating should not have that same problem.

I would think the engine would continue to optimize for a PACKED_ELEMENTS Array if length were set to a value less than its current content, including 0.

Razin Rahman • Mar 13 '20

Hey!

Mitesh Kamat • Jun 17 '20

Thanks !!