diff --git a/1-js/04-object-basics/05-object-toprimitive/article.md b/1-js/04-object-basics/05-object-toprimitive/article.md index 25679b65..a4a9bc1b 100644 --- a/1-js/04-object-basics/05-object-toprimitive/article.md +++ b/1-js/04-object-basics/05-object-toprimitive/article.md @@ -155,14 +155,21 @@ alert(user + 500); // toString -> John500 In the absence of `Symbol.toPrimitive` and `valueOf`, `toString` will handle all primitive conversions. - -## ToPrimitive and ToString/ToNumber +## Return types The important thing to know about all primitive-conversion methods is that they do not necessarily return the "hinted" primitive. There is no control whether `toString()` returns exactly a string, or whether `Symbol.toPrimitive` method returns a number for a hint "number". -**The only mandatory thing: these methods must return a primitive.** +The only mandatory thing: these methods must return a primitive, not an object. + +```smart header="Historical notes" +For historical reasons, if `toString` or `valueOf` return an object, there's no error, but such value is ignored (like if the method didn't exist). That's because in ancient times there was no good "error" concept in JavaScript. + +In contrast, `Symbol.toPrimitive` *must* return a primitive, otherwise there will be an error. +``` + +## Further operations An operation that initiated the conversion gets that primitive, and then continues to work with it, applying further conversions if necessary. @@ -204,11 +211,6 @@ For instance: alert(obj + 2); // 3 (ToPrimitive returned boolean, not string => ToNumber) ``` -```smart header="Historical notes" -For historical reasons, methods `toString` or `valueOf` *should* return a primitive: if any of them returns an object, then there's no error, but that object is ignored (like if the method didn't exist). - -In contrast, `Symbol.toPrimitive` *must* return a primitive, otherwise, there will be an error. -``` ## Summary diff --git a/1-js/05-data-types/04-array/article.md b/1-js/05-data-types/04-array/article.md index 2fad1601..b39aa2fe 100644 --- a/1-js/05-data-types/04-array/article.md +++ b/1-js/05-data-types/04-array/article.md @@ -1,12 +1,12 @@ -# Arrays +# Arrays Objects allow you to store keyed collections of values. That's fine. -But quite often we find that we need an *ordered collection*, where we have a 1st, a 2nd, a 3rd element and so on. For example, we need that to store a list of something: users, goods, HTML elements etc. +But quite often we find that we need an *ordered collection*, where we have a 1st, a 2nd, a 3rd element and so on. For example, we need that to store a list of something: users, goods, HTML elements etc. It is not convenient to use an object here, because it provides no methods to manage the order of elements. We can’t insert a new property “between” the existing ones. Objects are just not meant for such use. -There exists a special data structure named `Array`, to store ordered collections. +There exists a special data structure named `Array`, to store ordered collections. ## Declaration @@ -81,10 +81,10 @@ arr[3](); // hello ````smart header="Trailing comma" An array, just like an object, may end with a comma: -```js +```js let fruits = [ - "Apple", - "Orange", + "Apple", + "Orange", "Plum"*!*,*/!* ]; ``` @@ -106,7 +106,7 @@ Arrays support both operations. In practice we need it very often. For example, a queue of messages that need to be shown on-screen. -There's another use case for arrays -- the data structure named [stack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_(abstract_data_type)). +There's another use case for arrays -- the data structure named [stack](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_(abstract_data_type)). It supports two operations: @@ -121,7 +121,7 @@ A stack is usually illustrated as a pack of cards: new cards are added to the to For stacks, the latest pushed item is received first, that's also called LIFO (Last-In-First-Out) principle. For queues, we have FIFO (First-In-First-Out). -Arrays in JavaScript can work both as a queue and as a stack. They allow you to add/remove elements both to/from the beginning or the end. +Arrays in JavaScript can work both as a queue and as a stack. They allow you to add/remove elements both to/from the beginning or the end. In computer science the data structure that allows it is called [deque](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Double-ended_queue). @@ -189,11 +189,11 @@ alert( fruits ); ## Internals -An array is a special kind of object. The square brackets used to access a property `arr[0]` actually come from the object syntax. Numbers are used as keys. +An array is a special kind of object. The square brackets used to access a property `arr[0]` actually come from the object syntax. That's essentially the same as `obj[key]`, where `arr` is the object, while numbers are used as keys. They extend objects providing special methods to work with ordered collections of data and also the `length` property. But at the core it's still an object. -Remember, there are only 7 basic types in JavaScript. Array is an object and thus behaves like an object. +Remember, there are only 7 basic types in JavaScript. Array is an object and thus behaves like an object. For instance, it is copied by reference: @@ -203,7 +203,7 @@ let fruits = ["Banana"] let arr = fruits; // copy by reference (two variables reference the same array) alert( arr === fruits ); // true - + arr.push("Pear"); // modify the array by reference alert( fruits ); // Banana, Pear - 2 items now @@ -229,7 +229,7 @@ But the engine will see that we're working with the array as with a regular obje The ways to misuse an array: -- Add a non-numeric property like `arr.test = 5`. +- Add a non-numeric property like `arr.test = 5`. - Make holes, like: add `arr[0]` and then `arr[1000]` (and nothing between them). - Fill the array in the reverse order, like `arr[1000]`, `arr[999]` and so on. @@ -296,7 +296,7 @@ let fruits = ["Apple", "Orange", "Plum"]; // iterates over array elements for (let fruit of fruits) { - alert( fruit ); + alert( fruit ); } ``` @@ -320,7 +320,7 @@ But that's actually a bad idea. There are potential problems with it: There are so-called "array-like" objects in the browser and in other environments, that *look like arrays*. That is, they have `length` and indexes properties, but they may also have other non-numeric properties and methods, which we usually don't need. The `for..in` loop will list them though. So if we need to work with array-like objects, then these "extra" properties can become a problem. -2. The `for..in` loop is optimized for generic objects, not arrays, and thus is 10-100 times slower. Of course, it's still very fast. The speedup may only matter in bottlenecks or seem irrelevant. But still we should be aware of the difference. +2. The `for..in` loop is optimized for generic objects, not arrays, and thus is 10-100 times slower. Of course, it's still very fast. The speedup may only matter in bottlenecks. But still we should be aware of the difference. Generally, we shouldn't use `for..in` for arrays. @@ -338,7 +338,7 @@ fruits[123] = "Apple"; alert( fruits.length ); // 124 ``` -Note that we usually don't use arrays like that. +Note that we usually don't use arrays like that. Another interesting thing about the `length` property is that it's writable. @@ -385,7 +385,7 @@ To evade such surprises, we usually use square brackets, unless we really know w ## Multidimensional arrays -Arrays can have items that are also arrays. We can use it for multidimensional arrays, to store matrices: +Arrays can have items that are also arrays. We can use it for multidimensional arrays, for example to store matrices: ```js run let matrix = [ @@ -445,7 +445,7 @@ Array is a special kind of object, suited to storing and managing ordered data i The call to `new Array(number)` creates an array with the given length, but without elements. -- The `length` property is the array length or, to be precise, its last numeric index plus one. It is auto-adjusted by array methods. +- The `length` property is the array length or, to be precise, its last numeric index plus one. It is auto-adjusted by array methods. - If we shorten `length` manually, the array is truncated. We can use an array as a deque with the following operations: @@ -461,4 +461,3 @@ To loop over the elements of the array: - `for (let i in arr)` -- never use. We will return to arrays and study more methods to add, remove, extract elements and sort arrays in the chapter . -