Array: Insert an Item at a Specific Index with JavaScript

By  on  

There are many tasks related to arrays that sound quite simple but (1) aren't and (2) aren't required of a developer very often. I was encountered with one such task recently: inserting an item into an existing array at a specific index. Sounds easy and common enough but it took some research to figure it out.

// The original array
var array = ["one", "two", "four"];
// splice(position, numberOfItemsToRemove, item)
array.splice(2, 0, "three");

array;  // ["one", "two", "three", "four"]

If you aren't adverse to extending natives in JavaScript, you could add this method to the Array prototype:

Array.prototype.insert = function (index, item) {
  this.splice(index, 0, item);
};

I've tinkered around quite a bit with arrays, as you may have noticed:

Arrays are super useful -- JavaScript just makes some tasks a bit more ... code-heavy than they need to be. Keep these snippets in your toolbox for the future!

Recent Features

  • By
    An Interview with Eric Meyer

    Your early CSS books were instrumental in pushing my love for front end technologies. What was it about CSS that you fell in love with and drove you to write about it? At first blush, it was the simplicity of it as compared to the table-and-spacer...

  • By
    Create a CSS Cube

    CSS cubes really showcase what CSS has become over the years, evolving from simple color and dimension directives to a language capable of creating deep, creative visuals.  Add animation and you've got something really neat.  Unfortunately each CSS cube tutorial I've read is a bit...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Scroll IFRAMEs on iOS

    For the longest time, developers were frustrated by elements with overflow not being scrollable within the page of iOS Safari.  For my blog it was particularly frustrating because I display my demos in sandboxed IFRAMEs on top of the article itself, so as to not affect my site's...

  • By
    CSS Gradients

    With CSS border-radius, I showed you how CSS can bridge the gap between design and development by adding rounded corners to elements.  CSS gradients are another step in that direction.  Now that CSS gradients are supported in Internet Explorer 8+, Firefox, Safari, and Chrome...

Discussion

  1. Man, isn’t this JavaScript powerful…

  2. MaxArt

    How about a little step further? Since splice takes an indefinite number of arguments, you can do something like this:

    Array.prototype.insert = function (index) {
      this.splice.apply(this, [index, 0].concat(this.slice.call(arguments, 1)));
    };
    

    so you can do

    array.insert(2, "three", "another three", "the last three");
    array;  // ["one", "two", "three", "another three", "the last three", "four"]
    
  3. Great tip, thanks. I knew this trick before but I forgot that splice could take more than 2 arguments, phew.

  4. Yes, it’s a very useful function. Last year I was delighted to find out that it exists – it made the project I was working on extremely useful.

Wrap your code in <pre class="{language}"></pre> tags, link to a GitHub gist, JSFiddle fiddle, or CodePen pen to embed!