Question

Actionscript uses sparse arrays, so I can have an array like this:

var myArray:Array = new Array();
myArray[0] = "foo";
myArray[22] = "bar";

Now myArray.length will give me 23. Is there a way to get the actual number of items in the array without iterating every element?

Answer 1

If you don’t want to iterate through the array, you can filter it:

var myArray:Array = new Array();
myArray[0] = "foo";
myArray[22] = "bar";

var numberOfItems:int = myArray.toString().split(',').filter(isItem).length;

function isItem(item:*, index:int, array:Array):Boolean
{
  return item != "";
}