JavaScript variable number of arguments to function

Question

Is there a way to allow \"unlimited\" vars for a function in JavaScript?

Example:

load(var1, var2, var3, var4, var5, etc...)
load(var1)

Answer 1

Although I generally agree that the named arguments approach is useful and flexible (unless you care about the order, in which case arguments is easiest), I do have concerns about the cost of the mbeasley approach (using defaults and extends). This is an extreme amount of cost to take for pulling default values. First, the defaults are defined inside the function, so they are repopulated on every call. Second, you can easily read out the named values and set the defaults at the same time using ||. There is no need to create and merge yet another new object to get this information.

function load(context) {
   var parameter1 = context.parameter1 || defaultValue1,
       parameter2 = context.parameter2 || defaultValue2;

   // do stuff
}

This is roughly the same amount of code (maybe slightly more), but should be a fraction of the runtime cost.