RoundRobin functional approach - why does my function have side effects?

Question

Objective

I am trying to create a Round Robin algorithm ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Round-robin_scheduling ) in a pure functional way.

This function, is

Answer 1

1. If I am using reduce, which is pure, how am I mutating my parameters?

Function parameters can't really be mutated; a strange thought – but I'm sure you meant the arguments supplied to your function are being mutated. And yeah, that's with .shift as others pointed out

And for what it's worth, .reduce isn't pure unless the user-supplied lambda is pure

2. Is there another pure/functional way of implementing roundRobin?

Yep

const isEmpty = xs =>
  xs.length === 0
  
const head = ( [ x , ...xs ] ) =>
  x
  
const tail = ( [ x , ...xs ] ) =>
  xs

const append = ( xs , x ) =>
  xs.concat ( [ x ] )
  
const roundRobin = ( [ x , ...xs ] , acc = [] ) =>
  x === undefined
    ? acc
    : isEmpty ( x )
      ? roundRobin ( xs , acc )
      : roundRobin ( append ( xs , tail ( x ) )
                   , append ( acc , head ( x ) )
                   )

const data =
  [ [ 1 , 4 , 7 , 9 ]
  , [ 2 , 5 ]
  , [ 3 , 6 , 8 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]
  ]
                   
console.log ( roundRobin ( data ) )
// => [ 1 , 2 , 3 , 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 , 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ]

console.log ( roundRobin ( [ [ 1 , 2 , 3 ] ] ) )
// => [ 1 , 2 , 3 ]

console.log ( roundRobin ( [] ) )
// => []