How can I easily obtain the min or max element of a JavaScript array?
Example pseudocode:
let array = [100, 0, 50]
array.min() //=> 0
array.max() //=> 100
55 Answers
How about augmenting the built-in Array object to use Math.max/Math.min instead:
Array.prototype.max = function() {
return Math.max.apply(null, this);
};
Array.prototype.min = function() {
return Math.min.apply(null, this);
};
let p = [35,2,65,7,8,9,12,121,33,99];
console.log(`Max value is: ${p.max()}` +
`\nMin value is: ${p.min()}`);
Here is a JSFiddle.
Augmenting the built-ins can cause collisions with other libraries (some see), so you may be more comfortable with just apply'ing Math.xxx() to your array directly:
var min = Math.min.apply(null, arr),
max = Math.max.apply(null, arr);
Alternately, assuming your browser supports ECMAScript 6, you can use spread syntax which functions similarly to the apply method:
var min = Math.min( ...arr ),
max = Math.max( ...arr );
var max_of_array = Math.max.apply(Math, array);
For a full discussion see:
For big arrays (~10⁷ elements), Math.min and Math.max both produces the following error in Node.js.
RangeError: Maximum call stack size exceeded
A more robust solution is to not add every element to the call stack, but to instead pass an array:
function arrayMin(arr) {
return arr.reduce(function (p, v) {
return ( p < v ? p : v );
});
}
function arrayMax(arr) {
return arr.reduce(function (p, v) {
return ( p > v ? p : v );
});
}
If you are concerned about speed, the following code is ~3 times faster then Math.max.apply is on my computer. See .
function arrayMin(arr) {
var len = arr.length, min = Infinity;
while (len--) {
if (arr[len] < min) {
min = arr[len];
}
}
return min;
};
function arrayMax(arr) {
var len = arr.length, max = -Infinity;
while (len--) {
if (arr[len] > max) {
max = arr[len];
}
}
return max;
};
If your arrays contains strings instead of numbers, you also need to coerce them into numbers. The below code does that, but it slows the code down ~10 times on my machine. See .
function arrayMin(arr) {
var len = arr.length, min = Infinity;
while (len--) {
if (Number(arr[len]) < min) {
min = Number(arr[len]);
}
}
return min;
};
function arrayMax(arr) {
var len = arr.length, max = -Infinity;
while (len--) {
if (Number(arr[len]) > max) {
max = Number(arr[len]);
}
}
return max;
};
Using spread operator (ES6)
Math.max(...array) // The same with "min" => Math.min(...array)
const array = [10, 2, 33, 4, 5];
console.log(
Math.max(...array)
)
tl;dr
// For regular arrays:
var max = Math.max(...arrayOfNumbers);
// For arrays with tens of thousands of items:
let max = testArray[0];
for (let i = 1; i < testArrayLength; ++i) {
if (testArray[i] > max) {
max = testArray[i];
}
}