∟Truncating and Iterating Array Elements

This section provides a tutorial example on how to use the array length to truncate and iterate over array elements.

As an object, an array has a special property called "length". You can use the object dot (.) operator to retrieve the length value: "array_name.length".

The array length property can be used to truncate an array by setting the "length" property to a lower value.

The array length property is also useful when you want to iterate all elements of an array.

For example, iterating all elements of an array with a "for" loop can be done as:

for (var i = 0; i < array_name.length; i++) {
  ... array_name[i];
}

Here is a tutorial example JavaScript that shows you how to truncate and iterate array elements with the "length" property:

<html>
<!-- Loop_Array_Elements.html
    Copyright (c) 2002 HerongYang.com. All Rights Reserved.
->
<head><title>Loop Array Elements</title></head>
<body>
<pre>
<script type="text/javascript">

   // Creating an empty array
   var even_numbers = new Array();

   // Storing 20 elements in the array
   for (var i=0; i<20; i++) {
      even_numbers[i] = i*2;
   }

   // Truncating the array length to 10
   even_numbers.length = 10;
   
   // Iterating all 10 elements
   document.write("First 10 even numbers: ");
   for (var i=0; i<even_numbers.length; i++) {
      document.write(even_numbers[i]+", ");
   }
</script>
</pre>
</body>
</html>

The output of this sample JavaScript is:

First 10 even numbers: 0, 2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12, 14, 16, 18, 

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Introduction to JavaScript

 ECMAScript Language Specification and JavaScript Dialects

 Data Types, Variables and Expressions

 Flow Control Statements

►Creating, Accessing, and Manipulating Arrays

 What Is an Array

 Creating an Array Object

 Accessing Array Elements with Indexes

►Truncating and Iterating Array Elements

 Array Object Instance Methods

 Array Object Instance Method Examples

 Defining and Calling Functions

 Web Browser Supporting JavaScript

 Server-Side and Client-Side Web Scripting

 Introduction to Objects

 Defining Your Own Object Types

 Inheritance of Properties and Methods through the Prototype Object Chain

 'jrunscript' - JavaScript Shell Command from JDK

 Using Functions as "Function" Objects

 Introduction to Built-in Object Types

 W3C's Document Object Model (DOM) Specifications

 AJAX (Asynchronous JavaScript And XML)

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB