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JavaScript - Arrays

Arrays occupy space in memory. An array in JavaScript is an Array object. The programmer uses operator new to allocate dynamically the number of elements required by each array.

Arrays

Declaring and Allocating Arrays

 

       Arrays occupy space in memory. An array in JavaScript is an Array object. The programmer uses operator new to allocate dynamically the number of elements required by each array.

 

       The process of creating new objects is also known as creating an instance, or instantiating an object, and operator new is known as the dynamic memory allocation operator. Array objects are allocated with new because arrays are considered to be objects, and all objects must be created with new. To allocate 12 elements for integer array c, use the statement

var c = new Array( 12 );

 

 

       When arrays are allocated, the elements are not initialized.

 

Examples Using Arrays

<head>

 

<title>Initializing an Array</title> <script type = "text/javascript"> <!--

// this function is called when the <body> element's

// onload event occurs

 

function initializeArrays()

{

 

var n1 = new Array( 5 ); // allocate 5-element Array var n2 = new Array(); // allocate empty Array

 

// assign values to each element of Array n1 for ( var i = 0; i < n1.length; ++i )

n1[ i ] = i;

 

// create and initialize five-elements in Array n2 for ( i = 0; i < 5; ++i )

n2[ i ] = i;

 

outputArray( "Array n1 contains", n1 ); outputArray( "Array n2 contains", n2 );

}

 

// output "header" followed by a two-column table

 

//  containing subscripts and elements of "theArray" function outputArray( header, theArray )

{

 

document.writeln( "<h2>" + header + "</h2>" );

 

document.writeln( "<table border = \"1\" width =" + "\"100%\">" ); document.writeln( "<thead><th width = \"100\"" + "align = \"left\">Subscript</th>" + "<th align = \"left\">Value</th></thead><tbody>" );

 

for ( var i = 0; i < theArray.length; i++ ) document.writeln( "<tr><td>" + i + "</td><td>" +

 

theArray[ i ] + "</td></tr>" ); document.writeln( "</tbody></table>" );

}

 

// -->

</script>

 

</head>

<body onload = "initializeArrays()"></body>

</html>


Passing Arrays to Functions

 

       To pass an array argument to a function, specify the name of the array (a reference to the array) without brackets. For example, if array hourlyTemperatures has been declared as

var hourlyTemperatures = new Array( 24 );

 

then the function call

 

 modifyArray( hourlyTemperatures ); passes array hourlyTemperatures to function modifyArray.

 

       In JavaScript, every array object ―knows‖ its own size (via the length attribute). Thus, when we pass an array object into a function, we do not pass the size of the array separately as an argument.

 

       Although entire arrays are passed by using call-by-reference, individual numeric and boolean array elements are passed by call-by-value exactly as simple numeric and Boolean variables are passed (the objects referred to by individual elements of an Array of objects are still passed by call-by-reference). Such simple single pieces of data are called scalars, or scalar quantities. To pass an array element to a function, use the subscripted name of the element as an argument in the function call.

 

Multiple-Subscripted Arrays

 

‖ Multiple-subscripted arrays with two subscripts often are used to represent tables of values

       consisting of information arranged in rows and columns.

 

       To identify a particular table element, we must specify the two subscripts; by convention, the first identifies the element‘s row, and the second identifies the element‘s column. Arrays that require two subscripts to identify a particular element are called double-subscripted arrays (also called two-dimensional arrays).

 

       Multiple-subscripted arrays can have more than two subscripts. JavaScript does not support multiple-subscripted arrays directly, but does allow the programmer to specify single-subscripted arrays whose elements are also single-subscripted arrays, thus achieving the same effect.

 

       Every element in array a is identified by an element name of the form a[i][j]; a is the name of the array, and i and j are the subscripts that uniquely identify the row and column, respectively, of each element in a.

 

       The names of the elements in the first row all have a first subscript of 0; the names of the elements in the fourth column all have a second subscript of 3. Multiple-subscripted arrays can be initialized in declarations like a single-subscripted array. Array b with two rows and two columns could be declared and initialized with the statement

 

var b = [ [ 1, 2 ], [ 3, 4 ] ];

 

       The values are grouped by row in square brackets. So, 1 and 2 initialize b[0][0] and b[0][1], and 3 and 4 initialize b[1][0] and b[1][1]. The interpreter determines the number of rows by counting the number of sub-initializer lists (represented by sets of square brackets) in the main initializer list. The interpreter determines the number of columns in each row by counting the number of

 

initializer values in the sub-initializer list for that row. Multiple-subscripted arrays are maintained as arrays of arrays. The declaration

var b = [ [ 1, 2 ], [ 3, 4, 5 ] ];

 

creates array b with row 0 containing two elements (1 and 2) and row 1 containing three elements (3, 4 and 5).

 

Objects

The built-in objects available in java script are,

 

String object

The String object is used to manipulate a stored piece of text.

Example:

 

1.     var txt="Hello world!";

document.write(txt.length);

 

output: 12

 

2.   var txt="Hello world!";

document.write(txt.toUpperCase());

 

output:  HELLO WORLD!

 

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