Question

Before finishing up this chapter, I want to introduce you to a few more object-related concepts. We’ll start by introducing some generally useful array methods.

We saw push and pop , which add and remove elements at the end of an array, earlier in this chapter. The corresponding methods for adding and removing things at the start of an array are called unshift and shift .

var todoList = [];
function rememberTo(task) {
  todoList.push(task);
}
function whatIsNext() {
  return todoList.shift();
}
function urgentlyRememberTo(task) {
  todoList.unshift(task);
}

The previous program manages lists of tasks. You add tasks to the end of the list by calling rememberTo("eat") , and when you’re ready to do something, you call whatIsNext() to get (and remove) the front item from the list. The urgentlyRememberTo function also adds a task but adds it to the front instead of the back of the list.

The indexOf method has a sibling called lastIndexOf , which starts searching for the given element at the end of the array instead of the front.

console.log([1, 2, 3, 2, 1].indexOf(2));
// → 1
console.log([1, 2, 3, 2, 1].lastIndexOf(2));
// → 3

Both indexOf and lastIndexOf take an optional second argument that indicates where to start searching from.

Another fundamental method is slice , which takes a start index and an end index and returns an array that has only the elements between those indices. The start index is inclusive, the end index exclusive.

console.log([0, 1, 2, 3, 4].slice(2, 4));
// → [2, 3]
console.log([0, 1, 2, 3, 4].slice(2));
// → [2, 3, 4]

When the end index is not given, slice will take all of the elements after the start index. Strings also have a slice method, which has a similar effect.

The concat method can be used to glue arrays together, similar to what the + operator does for strings. The following example shows both concat and slice in action. It takes an array and an index, and it returns a new array that is a copy of the original array with the element at the given index removed.

function remove(array, index) {
  return array.slice(0, index)
    .concat(array.slice(index + 1));
}
console.log(remove(["a", "b", "c", "d", "e"], 2));
// → ["a", "b", "d", "e"]

This is a book about getting computers to do what you want them to do. Computers are about as common as screwdrivers today, but they contain a lot more hidden complexity and thus are harder to operate and understand. To many, they remain alien, slightly threatening things.