ArrayLike Proxy

Treat everything like an array! ArrayLike Proxy wraps a function, arrow function, object, arguments, or an array and allows you to treat it just like an array.

Uses

Objects

Have an ArrayLike Object and you want to use it like an array? Too bad! You have to convert it first:

import ArrayLike from 'src/ArrayLike';

const array = {
    0: 'zero',
    1: 'one',
    length: 2
}

// X Cant do this!
// array.concat([1, 2, 3]);

// Now you can!
ArrayLike(array).concat([1, 2, 3])  // [ 'zero', 'one', 1, 2, 3]

// Or this!
ArrayLike(array).splice(array.length, 0, 1, 2, 3);
array.length; // 5

Functions

Want a method to maintain its own list?

import ArrayLike from 'src/ArrayLike';

const addMiddleware = (route, handler) => {
    middleware.push({
        route,
        handler
    });
    return middleware;
};
const middleware = ArrayLike(addMiddleware);

// Now we have a functional list builder
middleware('/user/:id', () => {}).middleware('/admin', () => {}).middleware('/', () => {});

Or maybe we want to collect and build

import ArrayLike from 'src/ArrayLike';

const builder = function (name) {
    this.name = name;
    this.assignments = [... StudentAssignments]
}
const StudentAssignments = ArrayLike(builder);
StudentAssignments.push('Take home Test A');
StudentAssignments.push('Homework 1');
StudentAssignments.push('Quiz I');
const studentRecords = [
    new StudentAssignments('Joe Smith');
    new StudentAssignments('Jane Doe');
];

Ok. Maybe that last example is a solution looking for a problem....

Arguments

How about an anarchronistic example. Nobody should be using arguments anymore!

import ArrayLike from 'src/ArrayLike';

function methodOne(one, two) {
    if (typeof two === 'number') {
        throw new Error();
    }
    
    // So fancy!
    return methodTwo(ArrayLike(arguments).reverse());
}

function methodTwo(two, one) {
    if (typeof two === 'number') {
        throw new Error();
    }
    
    return `${ two } is number: ${ one }`;
}

methodOne(1, 'I');  // I did it!

Installation & Usage

This package is supported on modern browsers and Node 6+

npm install arraylike-proxy --save

Node.js

const ArrayLike = require('arraylike-proxy');

AMD

define([ 'arraylike-proxy' ], (ArrayLike) => {
    
});

TypeScript

import ArrayLike from 'arraylike-proxy'

Ambient declarations are available as part of the npm package. TypeScript source is available from the github repo.

Fin

Wow! You made it! Well I guess you deserve a story. I made this library because JavaScript, for all its flexibility, didn't have a good way of creating a method that could also behave like an array. Sure, we have this concept of arraylike objects, but those tend to break down when you want to use direct assignments or, you know, actually use the thing like an array. Plus I get to do terrible things with Proxy and Symbol. Win-win!