Have a Handy JS Snippet You Want to Share?

So it’s pretty simple. I’m looking for one or two lines of JavaScript that do something useful.

I’ll get the ball rolling and start with some examples:

Shallow array clone via Array spread.

const originalArray = [1, 2, 3];
const shallowArrayClone = [...originalArray];

Shallow array clone via Array.protoype.slice.

const originalArray = [1, 2, 3];
const shallowArrayClone = originalArray.slice();

You could just do const new array = this.props.slice().sort()
— Nick Taylor (@nickytonline) September 15, 2017

Shallow clone of an object via object spread.

const originalObject = { a:1, b: 2, c: 3 };
const shallowObjectClone = {...originalObject};

Shallow clone of an object via object spread with one property overridden.

const originalObject = { a:1, b: 2, c: 3 };
const shallowObjectClone = {...originalObject, c: 45 };

Get unique values of an array using Set

const arrayWithDuplicateValues = [1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 5];
const uniqueArray = Array.from(new Set(arrayWithDuplicateValues);

const arrayWithDuplicateValues = [1, 2, 3, 3, 1, 5];
const uniqueArray = [...new Set(arrayWithDuplicateValues)];

See if two arrays have the same values (unordered and for primitive values).

const a = [1, 2, 3];
const b = [2, 3, 4];

const uniques = new Set(a.concat(b));
const haveSameValues = uniques.length === a.length // or uniques.length === b.length;

Flatten an array with the ES spread operator and Array.prototype.concat. Great tip care of Jonathan Z. White.

TIL you can flatten multi-dimensional arrays using concat and the ES6 spread operator ☀️ pic.twitter.com/zPK4a490w2
— Jonathan Z. White 👾 (@JonathanZWhite) April 16, 2018

const arrayToFlatten = [ [1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9] ];
const flattenedArray = [].concat(...arrayToFlatten);

2020 Update for the above is

[ [1,2,3], [4,5,6], [7,8,9] ].flatMap(x=>x)

And go!

Cover image care of Flickr user Wayne Grivell.