Sum an Array of Numbers with JavaScript

By  on  

It's rare that I'm disappointed by the JavaScript language not having a function that I need. One such case was summing an array of numbers -- I was expecting Math.sum or a likewise, baked in API. Fear not -- summing an array of numbers is easy using Array.prototype.reduce!

const numbers = [1, 2, 3, 4];
const sum = numbers.reduce((a, b) => a + b, 0);

The 0 represents the starting value while with a and b, one represents the running total with the other representing the value to be added. You'll also note that using reduce prevents side effects! I'd still prefer something like Math.sum(...numbers) but a simple reduce will do!

Recent Features

  • By
    5 Awesome New Mozilla Technologies You’ve Never Heard Of

    My trip to Mozilla Summit 2013 was incredible.  I've spent so much time focusing on my project that I had lost sight of all of the great work Mozillians were putting out.  MozSummit provided the perfect reminder of how brilliant my colleagues are and how much...

  • By
    39 Shirts – Leaving Mozilla

    In 2001 I had just graduated from a small town high school and headed off to a small town college. I found myself in the quaint computer lab where the substandard computers featured two browsers: Internet Explorer and Mozilla. It was this lab where I fell...

Incredible Demos

  • By
    Create GitHub-Style Buttons with CSS and jQuery, MooTools, or Dojo JavaScript

    I'm what you would consider a bit of a GitHub fanboy. We all know that GitHub is the perfect place to store repositories of open source code, but I think my love of GitHub goes beyond that. GitHub seems to understand that most...

  • 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...

Discussion

  1. Chris Zuber

    Initializing with 0 might not be necessary since it takes the value from the first item in the array if not provided (and then skips the first item for the rest). It’s very slightly slower to set it to 0.

    Here’s what I wonder though… Suppose this were in some math.js module. Would it be sum(nums) or sum(...nums)? sum([1,2,3]) or sum(1,2,3)? I kinda prefer the latter.

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