JavaScript Array.map

Array.prototype.map()

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This article is in need of a technical review.

Table of Contents

1. Summary
2. Syntax
3. Parameters
4. Description
5. Compatibility
6. Examples
   1. Example: Pluralizing the words (strings) in an array
   2. Example: Mapping an array of numbers to an array of square roots
   3. Example: using map generically
   4. Tricky use case
7. Browser compatibility

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Summary

Creates a new array with the results of calling a provided function on every element in this array.

Method of Array
Implemented in	JavaScript 1.6
ECMAScript Edition	ECMAScript 5th Edition

Syntax

array.map(callback[, thisArg])

Parameters

callback

Function that produces an element of the new Array from an element of the current one.

thisArg

Object to use as this when executing callback.

Description

map calls a provided callback function once for each element in an array, in order, and constructs a new array from the results. callback is invoked only for indexes of the array which have assigned values; it is not invoked for indexes which have been deleted or which have never been assigned values.

callback is invoked with three arguments: the value of the element, the index of the element, and the Array object being traversed.

If a thisArg parameter is provided to map, it will be used as the this for each invocation of the callback. If it is not provided, or is null, the global object associated with callback is used instead.

map does not mutate the array on which it is called.

The range of elements processed by map is set before the first invocation of callback. Elements which are appended to the array after the call to map begins will not be visited by callback. If existing elements of the array are changed, or deleted, their value as passed to callback will be the value at the time map visits them; elements that are deleted are not visited.

Compatibility

map is a recent addition to the ECMA-262 standard; as such it may not be present in other implementations of the standard. You can work around this by inserting the following code at the beginning of your scripts, allowing use of map in implementations which do not natively support it. This algorithm is exactly the one specified in ECMA-262, 5th edition, assuming Object, TypeError, and Array have their original values and that callback.call evaluates to the original value of Function.prototype.call.

// Production steps of ECMA-262, Edition 5, 15.4.4.19
// Reference: http://es5.github.com/#x15.4.4.19
if (!Array.prototype.map) {
  Array.prototype.map = function(callback, thisArg) {

    var T, A, k;

    if (this == null) {
      throw new TypeError(" this is null or not defined");
    }

    // 1. Let O be the result of calling ToObject passing the |this| value as the argument.
    var O = Object(this);

    // 2. Let lenValue be the result of calling the Get internal method of O with the argument "length".
    // 3. Let len be ToUint32(lenValue).
    var len = O.length >>> 0;

    // 4. If IsCallable(callback) is false, throw a TypeError exception.
    // See: http://es5.github.com/#x9.11
    if (typeof callback !== "function") {
      throw new TypeError(callback + " is not a function");
    }

    // 5. If thisArg was supplied, let T be thisArg; else let T be undefined.
    if (thisArg) {
      T = thisArg;
    }

    // 6. Let A be a new array created as if by the expression new Array(len) where Array is
    // the standard built-in constructor with that name and len is the value of len.
    A = new Array(len);

    // 7. Let k be 0
    k = 0;

    // 8. Repeat, while k < len
    while(k < len) {

      var kValue, mappedValue;

      // a. Let Pk be ToString(k).
      //   This is implicit for LHS operands of the in operator
      // b. Let kPresent be the result of calling the HasProperty internal method of O with argument Pk.
      //   This step can be combined with c
      // c. If kPresent is true, then
      if (k in O) {

        // i. Let kValue be the result of calling the Get internal method of O with argument Pk.
        kValue = O[ k ];

        // ii. Let mappedValue be the result of calling the Call internal method of callback
        // with T as the this value and argument list containing kValue, k, and O.
        mappedValue = callback.call(T, kValue, k, O);

        // iii. Call the DefineOwnProperty internal method of A with arguments
        // Pk, Property Descriptor {Value: mappedValue, : true, Enumerable: true, Configurable: true},
        // and false.

        // In browsers that support Object.defineProperty, use the following:
        // Object.defineProperty(A, Pk, { value: mappedValue, writable: true, enumerable: true, configurable: true });

        // For best browser support, use the following:
        A[ k ] = mappedValue;
      }
      // d. Increase k by 1.
      k++;
    }

    // 9. return A
    return A;
  };      
}

Examples

Example: Pluralizing the words (strings) in an array

The following code creates an array of "plural" forms of nouns from an array of their singular forms.

function fuzzyPlural(single) {
  var result = single.replace(/o/g, 'e');  
  if( single === 'kangaroo'){
    result += 'se';
  }
  return result; 
}

var words = ["foot", "goose", "moose", "kangaroo"];
console.log(words.map(fuzzyPlural));

// ["feet", "geese", "meese", "kangareese"]

Example: Mapping an array of numbers to an array of square roots

The following code takes an array of numbers and creates a new array containing the square roots of the numbers in the first array.

var numbers = [1, 4, 9];
var roots = numbers.map(Math.sqrt);
/* roots is now [1, 2, 3], numbers is still [1, 4, 9] */

Example: using map generically

This example shows how to use map on a string to get an array of bytes in the ASCII encoding representing the character values:

var map = Array.prototype.map
var a = map.call("Hello World", function(x) { return x.charCodeAt(0); })
// a now equals [72, 101, 108, 108, 111, 32, 87, 111, 114, 108, 100]

Tricky use case

(inspired by this blog post)

It is common to use the callback with one argument (the element being traversed). Some functions are also commonly used with one argument. These habits may lead to confusing behaviors.

// Consider:
["1", "2", "3"].map(parseInt);
// While one could expect [1, 2, 3]
// The actual result is [1, NaN, NaN]

// parseInt is often used with one argument, but takes two. The second being the radix
// To the callback function, Array.prototype.map passes 3 arguments: the element, the index, the array
// The third argument is ignored by parseInt, but not the second one, hence the possible confusion.
// See the blog post for more details

/*
function returnInt(element){
  return parseInt(element,10);
}

["1", "2", "3"].map(returnInt);
// Actual result is an array of numbers (as expected)
*/

Browser compatibility