The wacky world of circular arrays! 🙀

Mar 05, 2021

The Wacky World of Circular Arrays

When you think about arrays, you probably have a pretty strict view of what they may look like. It would probably look a little bit like the following where you have a straight row of some sort with a beginning and end:

Now, here is the wacky bit. What if our arrays could actually be treated as a circle where we think of them as starting from anywhere and going on forever and ever and ever…and ever?

While this all may sound complicated, there is a mathematical trick that makes thinking about our arrays like this really simple. That trick involves the remainder operator, or the % character you may have seen when fiddling with numbers in JavaScript.

To learn more, check out my latest article on the site, appropriately (and very boringly) called Infinitely Cycle Through an Array. I explain the benefits of thinking about our arrays as a circle and the various JavaScript techniques such as the remainder operator we can use to pull it all off.

Casually Cool Code

Just in case you were curious, this an example of what the code for cycling through a circular array will look like:

Neat, right? This code will print to the console every letter inside myArray. It will print it forever.

Arrays: The Book

If you are looking for a fun and easy-to-follow guide to learn about Arrays in JavaScript, look no further!

Learn More

Till Next Time

These newsletters have been a bit infrequent, and that is totally my bad. I’ll do my best to be more timely in the future. If you ever have anything you’d like me to consider writing about or just want to chat about anything web development related, drop by the forums…just like the good old days!