Question

This is the weirdest thing I’ve ever encountered in my programming life.

self.walls = new Array();
self.walls = [];
console.log(self.walls); //Doesn't print an empty array, but an array that contains something

How is this possible? I set self.walls to an empty array in two ways, and it’s still full of objects! I’m using the latest version of Google Chrome.

Edit: also, this is the only console.log() in the entire script.

Answer 1

console.log does not store the state of the object at the time of calling.

At a later point, you’ve overwritten the self.walls property, which is shown in the console.

If you want to log the true state at the time of executing, you can serialize the object:

// Works for primitives only:
console.log(JSON.parse(JSON.stringify(self.walls)));

// When the array contains another object, the shown referenced object might
//  change
console.log(self.walls.concat()); // Or any other array-copying method.