ES6 arrow functions and array.map

Kermit picture Kermit · Feb 8, 2018 · Viewed 38.3k times · Source

I am trying to understand some shorthand ways of writing ES6. What I cannot fully understand in the example below is the last shorthand "({length})" - I comprehend that it does work, and that it gets the length property of the array, but not why. How could this syntax be applied in another scenario, not involving arrays?

//Declare array
var materials = [
  'Hydrogen',
  'Helium',
  'Lithium',
  'Beryllium'
];

//Long version - ok
materials.map(function(material) { 
  return material.length; 
});

//Arrow function - ok
materials.map((material) => {
  return material.length;
});

//Shorthand arrow function - ok
materials.map(str => str.length);

//What? :)
materials.map(({length}) => length));

The example above is from the mozilla documentation of arrow functions. https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Functions/Arrow_functions

Answer

Ori Drori picture Ori Drori · Feb 8, 2018

The length is a property of strings, and can be destructured and returned in the map.

It's mostly the same as:

materials.map((str) => {
  const {length} = str;
  return length;
});