Converting the arguments object to an Array

The arguments object is an Array-like object providing access to arguments passed to a function. When hacking with functions, we frequently need to manipulate and pass around arguments as an Array. The Prototype library uses it's $A() function to accomplish the conversion, which is intuitive and beautiful.

Function.prototype.bind = function() {
  var __method = this, args = $A(arguments), object = args.shift();
  return function() {
    return __method.apply(object, args.concat($A(arguments)));
  }
}

Yet there is a another way.

//... inside a function definition
var args = [].slice.call(arguments);

// or var args = Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments);
//...

The slice(start, end) method of an Array object returns a copy of a specified portion of the array. Here we omit the start and end arguments and call slice() upon the arguments object. An array containing all arguments is returned. Then we can modify the array as we need and pass it to the apply() method of functions.

Notice that slice() only does a shallow copy and the return value is just an array any without magical behavior of the arguments object. There is no args.callee property. Moreover, if a parameter is listed at the nth position in the parameter list of the function definition, arguments[n] is a synonym for the local variable corresponding to the nth argument. Any change made to arguments[n] will affect the local variable because it's actually modifying the named property of the call object. However, since args is just a shallow copy of arguments, assigning args[n] will not affect the local variable. To demonstrate this,

function f (a) {
    alert('a: ' + a);
    var args = [].slice.call(arguments);
    arguments[0] = 'Assigning arguments[0] affects a';
    alert('a: ' + a);
    args[0] = 'Assigning args[0] does not change a';
    alert('a: ' + a);
}
f('JavaScript rocks!');

The three alerts will display "a: JavaScript rocks", "a: Assigning arguments[0] affects a" and "a: Assigning arguments[0] affects a" in order.

Tip: [].slice.call() can be used for any Array like objects, not only limited to the arguments object.