Are JavaScript arrays actually linked lists?

javascript arrays linked-list
nw. picture nw. · Aug 15, 2011 · Viewed 12.2k times · Source

I'm new to Javascript, and notice that you don't need to specify an array's size and often see people dynamically creating arrays one element at time. This would be a huge performance problem in other languages as you would constantly need to reallocate memory for the array as it increases in size.

Is this not a problem in JavaScript? If so, then is there a list structure available?

Answer

Malvolio picture Malvolio · Aug 15, 2011

Javascript arrays are typically implemented as hashmaps (just like Javascript objects) with one added feature: there is an attribute length, which is one higher than the highest positive integer that has been used as a key. Nothing stops you from also using strings, floating-point numbers, even negative numbers as keys. Nothing except good sense.

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