In ES6 using Array from() and keys() methods.
Array.from(Array(10).keys())
//=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
Shorter version using spread operator.
[...Array(10).keys()]
//=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
Start from 1 by passing map function to Array from(), with an object with a length property:
Array.from({length: 10}, (_, i) => i + 1)
//=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
Answer from Niko Ruotsalainen on Stack OverflowIn ES6 using Array from() and keys() methods.
Array.from(Array(10).keys())
//=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
Shorter version using spread operator.
[...Array(10).keys()]
//=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
Start from 1 by passing map function to Array from(), with an object with a length property:
Array.from({length: 10}, (_, i) => i + 1)
//=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
You can do so:
var N = 10;
Array.apply(null, {length: N}).map(Number.call, Number)
result: [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
or with random values:
Array.apply(null, {length: N}).map(Function.call, Math.random)
result: [0.7082694901619107, 0.9572225909214467, 0.8586748542729765, 0.8653848143294454, 0.008339877473190427, 0.9911756622605026, 0.8133423360995948, 0.8377588465809822, 0.5577575915958732, 0.16363654541783035]
Explanation
First, note that Number.call(undefined, N) is equivalent to Number(N), which just returns N. We'll use that fact later.
Array.apply(null, [undefined, undefined, undefined]) is equivalent to Array(undefined, undefined, undefined), which produces a three-element array and assigns undefined to each element.
How can you generalize that to N elements? Consider how Array() works, which goes something like this:
function Array() {
if ( arguments.length == 1 &&
'number' === typeof arguments[0] &&
arguments[0] >= 0 && arguments &&
arguments[0] < 1 << 32 ) {
return [ … ]; // array of length arguments[0], generated by native code
}
var a = [];
for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
a.push(arguments[i]);
}
return a;
}
Since ECMAScript 5, Function.prototype.apply(thisArg, argsArray) also accepts a duck-typed array-like object as its second parameter. If we invoke Array.apply(null, { length: N }), then it will execute
function Array() {
var a = [];
for (var i = 0; i < /* arguments.length = */ N; i++) {
a.push(/* arguments[i] = */ undefined);
}
return a;
}
Now we have an N-element array, with each element set to undefined. When we call .map(callback, thisArg) on it, each element will be set to the result of callback.call(thisArg, element, index, array). Therefore, [undefined, undefined, …, undefined].map(Number.call, Number) would map each element to (Number.call).call(Number, undefined, index, array), which is the same as Number.call(undefined, index, array), which, as we observed earlier, evaluates to index. That completes the array whose elements are the same as their index.
Why go through the trouble of Array.apply(null, {length: N}) instead of just Array(N)? After all, both expressions would result an an N-element array of undefined elements. The difference is that in the former expression, each element is explicitly set to undefined, whereas in the latter, each element was never set. According to the documentation of .map():
callbackis 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.
Therefore, Array(N) is insufficient; Array(N).map(Number.call, Number) would result in an uninitialized array of length N.
Compatibility
Since this technique relies on behaviour of Function.prototype.apply() specified in ECMAScript 5, it will not work in pre-ECMAScript 5 browsers such as Chrome 14 and Internet Explorer 9.
Numbers
[...Array(5).keys()];
=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
Character iteration
String.fromCharCode(...[...Array('D'.charCodeAt(0) - 'A'.charCodeAt(0) + 1).keys()].map(i => i + 'A'.charCodeAt(0)));
=> "ABCD"
Iteration
for (const x of Array(5).keys()) {
console.log(x, String.fromCharCode('A'.charCodeAt(0) + x));
}
=> 0,"A" 1,"B" 2,"C" 3,"D" 4,"E"
As functions
function range(size, startAt = 0) {
return [...Array(size).keys()].map(i => i + startAt);
}
function characterRange(startChar, endChar) {
return String.fromCharCode(...range(endChar.charCodeAt(0) -
startChar.charCodeAt(0), startChar.charCodeAt(0)))
}
As typed functions
function range(size:number, startAt:number = 0):ReadonlyArray<number> {
return [...Array(size).keys()].map(i => i + startAt);
}
function characterRange(startChar:string, endChar:string):ReadonlyArray<string> {
return String.fromCharCode(...range(endChar.charCodeAt(0) -
startChar.charCodeAt(0), startChar.charCodeAt(0)))
}
lodash.js _.range() function
_.range(10);
=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9]
_.range(1, 11);
=> [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10]
_.range(0, 30, 5);
=> [0, 5, 10, 15, 20, 25]
_.range(0, -10, -1);
=> [0, -1, -2, -3, -4, -5, -6, -7, -8, -9]
String.fromCharCode(..._.range('A'.charCodeAt(0), 'D'.charCodeAt(0) + 1));
=> "ABCD"
Old non es6 browsers without a library:
Array.apply(null, Array(5)).map(function (_, i) {return i;});
=> [0, 1, 2, 3, 4]
console.log([...Array(5).keys()]);
(ES6 credit to nils petersohn and other commenters)
For numbers you can use ES6 Array.from(), which works in everything these days except IE:
Shorter version:
Array.from({length: 20}, (x, i) => i);
Longer version:
Array.from(new Array(20), (x, i) => i);
which creates an array from 0 to 19 inclusive. This can be further shortened to one of these forms:
Array.from(Array(20).keys());
// or
[...Array(20).keys()];
Lower and upper bounds can be specified too, for example:
Array.from(new Array(20), (x, i) => i + *lowerBound*);
An article describing this in more detail: http://www.2ality.com/2014/05/es6-array-methods.html
Is it possible to make a variable only accept numbers in the range of 1 to 100?
This exact question has been asked here before, but it was 4 years ago and I was wondering if it's possible now.