Hi, in this article, we are going to discuss how a one-liner in JavaScript can improve our code quality and readability.
First, let's discuss what one-liners in JavaScript are.
This is not a JavaScript keyword or anything specific in JS; it's just a term that refers to accomplishing coding tasks in a single line, instead of using multiple lines or blocks.
For a better explanation, I am going to first write code in the traditional, or less efficient, way and then demonstrate how one-liners come to the rescue.
1) Sum of an array of elements
let numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
let sum = 0;
for (let i = 0; i < numbers.length; i++) {
sum += numbers[i];
}
one-liner
let numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4, 5];
let sum = numbers.reduce((acc, num) => acc + num, 0);
2) Removing Duplicates from an Array
let numbers = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5];
let uniqueNumbers = [];
for (let i = 0; i < numbers.length; i++) {
if (!uniqueNumbers.includes(numbers[i])) {
uniqueNumbers.push(numbers[i]);
}
}
one-liner
let numbers = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5];
let uniqueNumbers = [...new Set(numbers)];
3) Swap Two Varaibles
let a = 10;
let b = 20;
let temp = a;
a =b;
b = temp;
one-liner
[b, a] = [a, b]
4) Reverse a string
let str = 'hello';
let reversedStr = '';
for (let i = str.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
reversedStr += str[i];
}
one-liner
let str = 'hello';
let reversedStr = str.split('').reverse().join('');
5) Count Occureance of elements in array
let numbers = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5];
let count = {};
for (let i = 0; i < numbers.length; i++) {
if (count[numbers[i]]) {
count[numbers[i]]++;
} else {
count[numbers[i]] = 1;
}
}
One-liner:
let numbers = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 4, 5];
let count = numbers.reduce((acc, num) => {
acc[num] = (acc[num] || 0) + 1;
return acc;
}, {});
6) Checking if an Object Contains a Specific Key
let myObject = { name: 'Alice', age: 30 };
let hasKey = false;
for (let key in myObject) {
if (key === 'age') {
hasKey = true;
break;
}
}
One liner
let myObject = { name: 'Alice', age: 30 };
let hasKey = 'age' in myObject;
7) Find Intersection of Two Array
let array1 = [1, 2, 3, 4];
let array2 = [3, 4, 5, 6];
let intersection = [];
for (let i = 0; i < array1.length; i++) {
for (let j = 0; j < array2.length; j++) {
if (array1[i] === array2[j]) {
intersection.push(array1[i]);
break;
}
}
}
One liner
let array1 = [1, 2, 3, 4];
let array2 = [3, 4, 5, 6];
let intersection = array1.filter(value => array2.includes(value));
Hope you liked this article, The above examples come into our day-to-day life. Hope when it comes next you will use a one-liner for that ;)
If you are on Twitter, can you follow me there as well? I post these kinds of stuff there as well. => Follow @kushal_js
Top comments (5)
Isn't the purpose of a one-liner to take 1 line ? 😁
Reverse string above is also not very good; try it with
str = "Hello 😊"- it will break. Better, but not perfect is:haha here the one-liner is
While the brevity and consiseness of one-liners can be appealing, I really believe that one liners are a kind of a code smell. One-liners tend to condense a lot of operations and logic in one line, making them harder to understand. Also when you want to debug your code, one-liners tend to make it harder. Finally, I feel like one-liners are a barrier for effective collaboration.
It's great idea, but I think code'll be difficult to read.