Break a forEach Loop with JavaScript

By  on  

I've written a number of blog posts about JavaScript tricks: Promise tricks, type conversion tricks, spread tricks, and a host of other JavaScript tricks. I recently ran into another JavaScript trick that blew my mind: how to break a forEach loop, shared by Andrea Giammarchi!

To break the forEach loop at any point, you can truncate the array's length:

const myArray = [1, 2, 3];
myArray.forEach(item => {
  // ... do some stuff
  if(someConditionIsMet) {
    // Break out of the loop by truncating array
    myArray.length = 0;
  }
})

By setting the array's length to 0, you empty out the array and immediately halt the forEach. Of course, emptying out the array loses its original data, so you may want to create a new array ([...myArray].forEach) before this operation.

Another way of accomplishing the task would be throwing an exception instead:

// https://stackoverflow.com/questions/2641347/short-circuit-array-foreach-like-calling-break
let BreakException = {};

try {
  [1, 2, 3].forEach(function(el) {
    console.log(el);
    if (el === 2) throw BreakException;
  });
} catch (e) {
  if (e !== BreakException) throw e;
}

And of course, there will likely be a better way to get what you want without needing this trick, like using .find or .some, but not every trick needs to be a best practice!

Recent Features

Incredible Demos

  • By
    :valid, :invalid, and :required CSS Pseudo Classes

    Let's be honest, form validation with JavaScript can be a real bitch.  On a real basic level, however, it's not that bad.  HTML5 has jumped in to some extent, providing a few attributes to allow us to mark fields as required or only valid if matching...

  • By
    Prevent Page Zooming in Mobile Browsers

    Ever since I got my iPhone, I've been more agreeable in going places that my fiancee wants to go. It's not because I have any interest in checking out women's shoes, looking at flowers, or that type of stuff -- it's because my iPhone lets...

Discussion

  1. àlfons

    about the proposed [...myArray].forEach

    if you define myArray.length to zero later, it erases the array anyway

    • The third argument to forEach is the array itself, so you could use that.

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