JavaScript: Reverse Arrays

By  on  

Manipulating data is core to any programming language. JavaScript is no exception, especially as JSON has token over as a prime data delivery format. One such data manipulation is reversing arrays. You may want to reverse an array to show most recent transactions, or simple alphabetic sorting.

Reversing arrays with JavaScript originally was done via reverse but that would mutate the original array:

// First value:
const arr = ['hi', 'low', 'ahhh'];

// Reverse it without reassigning:
arr.reverse();

// Value:
arr (3) ['ahhh', 'low', 'hi']

Modifying the original array is a legacy methodology. To avoid this mutation, we'd copy the array and then reverse it:

const reversed = [...arr].reverse();

These days we can use toReversed to avoid mutating the original array:

const arr = ['hi', 'low', 'ahhh'];
const reversed = arr.toReversed(); // (3) ['ahhh', 'low', 'hi'];
arr; // ['hi', 'low', 'ahhh']

Avoiding mutation of data objects is incredibly important in a programming language like JavaScript where object references are meaningful.

Recent Features

  • By
    Being a Dev Dad

    I get asked loads of questions every day but I'm always surprised that they're rarely questions about code or even tech -- many of the questions I get are more about non-dev stuff like what my office is like, what software I use, and oftentimes...

  • By
    5 HTML5 APIs You Didn’t Know Existed

    When you say or read "HTML5", you half expect exotic dancers and unicorns to walk into the room to the tune of "I'm Sexy and I Know It."  Can you blame us though?  We watched the fundamental APIs stagnate for so long that a basic feature...

Incredible Demos

Discussion

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