JavaScript "for-in" Caveat With Arrays

Jan 24, 2013 • 1 min read

Don’t use for (var i in myArray) ever!

Apparently JavaScript for-in loops always convert the key to a String type. This has caused me troubles multiple times in the past and I would like to share my experiences with the world.

var myArray = [ 'foo', 'bar' ];

for (var i in myArray) {
  if (i === 0) {
    console.log('First!');
  } else {
    console.log('Not first :(');
  }
}

/**
 * Output:
 *
 * Not first :(
 * Not first :(
 *
 */

Confusing right? “First!” is never outputted because i is always a String, which is never strictly equal (===) to a Number. So, in summary, whenever you want to iterate over an array, it’s usually best to stick with the long form version:

var myArray = [ 'foo', 'bar' ];

for (var i=0; i&lt;myArray.length; i++) {
  if (i === 0) {
    console.log('First!');
  } else {
    console.log('Not first :(');
  }
}

/**
 * Output:
 *
 * First!
 * Not first :(
 *
 */

This will always produce the correct result.

Recommended Posts ✍🏻