ensure-array

ensure-array

Simple convenience function which ensures that you are dealing with an array and you can eliminate noise from your code.

For Example:

  var array = require('ensure-array');
  
  function foo(bar) {
    array(bar).forEach(function (x) {
      //do something with each item
    });
  }

Instead of doing something like this:

  function foo(bar) {
    if (bar === undefined) return;
    if (bar === null) return;
    if (!Array.isArray(bar)) bar = [bar];
    bar.forEach(function (x) {
      //do something with each item
    });
  }

Description

It gets rid of the noise and coerces what is provided into an array, so you do not have to litter your code with a bunch of extraneous checks.

Here is the logic behind the function:

1. if nothing passed to the function return empty array []
2. if single argument passed is undefined or null return empty array []
3. if single argument passed is already an array, return it unchanged
4. otherwise return array containing all of the arguments

Here is the actual code which makes it happen

module.exports = function array(a, b, n) {
 if (arguments.length === 0) return [];            //no args, ret []
 if (arguments.length === 1) {                     //single argument
   if (a === undefined || a === null) return [];   //  undefined or null, ret []
   if (Array.isArray(a)) return a;                 //  isArray, return it
 }
 return Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);     //return array with copy of all arguments
};

Installation

  npm install ensure-array

Usage

  var array = require('ensure-array');  // get handle to the function
  var foo = array(whatever);               // foo will now safely be an array

Status

• 2011-12-01 - 0.0.3 - Updated to support any version of Node.js

License

• MIT license

Contributors

• Author: Jeff Barczewski (@jeffbski)

Contributing

• Source code repository: http://github.com/jeffbski/ensure-array
• Ideas and pull requests are encouraged - http://github.com/jeffbski/ensure-array/issues
• You may contact me at @jeffbski or through github at http://github.com/jeffbski