JavaScript Arrays Best Practices

1. Use the literal syntax for array creation.

// bad
const items = new Array();

// good
const items = [];

2. Use Array#push instead of direct assignment to add items to an array.

const someStack = [];

// bad
someStack[someStack.length] = 'abracadabra';

// good
someStack.push('abracadabra');

3. Use array spreads ... to copy arrays.

// bad
const len = items.length;
const itemsCopy = [];
let i;

for (i = 0; i < len; i += 1) {
  itemsCopy[i] = items[i];
}

// good
const itemsCopy = [...items];

4. To convert an iterable object to an array, use spreads ... instead of Array.from.

const foo = document.querySelectorAll('.foo');

// good
const nodes = Array.from(foo);

// best
const nodes = [...foo];

5. Use Array.from for converting an array-like object to an array.

const arrLike = { 0: 'foo', 1: 'bar', 2: 'baz', length: 3 };

// bad
const arr = Array.prototype.slice.call(arrLike);

// good
const arr = Array.from(arrLike);

6. Use Array.from instead of spread ... for mapping over iterables, because it avoids creating an intermediate array.

// bad
const baz = [...foo].map(bar);

// good
const baz = Array.from(foo, bar);

7. Use line breaks after open and before close array brackets if an array has multiple lines

// bad
const arr = [
  [0, 1], [2, 3], [4, 5],
];

const objectInArray = [{
  id: 1,
}, {
  id: 2,
}];

const numberInArray = [
  1, 2,
];

// good
const arr = [[0, 1], [2, 3], [4, 5]];

const objectInArray = [
  {
    id: 1,
  },
  {
    id: 2,
  },
];

const numberInArray = [
  1,
  2,
];