The new Uize.copyList method, implemented in the Uize base module, lets you conveniently copy the elements of a list object into a fresh array.

SYNTAX

freshARRAY = Uize.copyList (listARRAYorOBJ);

While an array can be copied by using an expression like myArray.concat (), creating a copy of a list object such as a function's arguments object can be a little more cumbersome with an ugly expression like Array.prototype.slice.call (arguments) or [].slice.call (arguments) (if you're OK with creating an empty array for immediate garbage collection).

Expressions like this are hard to remember when you need to conjure them up, and they're equally unpleasant to make sense of when you see them in your code. The Uize.copyList method provides a more semantically elegant way to copy list objects, such as array instances, arguments objects, or any object with a length property whose value is a number - basically, any value that would produce the result true when passed to the Uize.isList static method.

EXAMPLE 1

Uize.copyList ({0:'foo',1:'bar',2:'baz',3:'qux',length:4});  // returns ['foo','bar','baz','qux']

In the above example, a list object is being copied to produce a fresh array containing the elements in the list object. This is a less common usage, but other objects that one may encounter during Web application development that are list objects and that you may want to create array copies of include things like DOM node lists / HTMLCollection instances.

EXAMPLE 2

function alertReversedSortedArgs () {
  alert (Uize.copyList (arguments).sort ().reverse ());  // alerts the text "qux,foo,baz,bar"
}

alertReversedSortedArgs ('foo','bar','baz','qux');

In the above example, the alertReversedSortedArgs function is alerting the reverse-sorted list of arguments that are passed to it. Because the arguments object is not a true array, the Array object's sort and reverse instance methods can't be called on it, but if the arguments list object is copied using the Uize.copyList method, then the sort and reverse methods can be called on the new array that is returned by this method.