Maximum size of an Array in Javascript

Question

Context: I\'m building a little site that reads an rss feed, and updates/checks the feed in the background. I have one array to store data to display, and another which stor

Answer 1

No need to trim the array, simply address it as a circular buffer (index % maxlen). This will ensure it never goes over the limit (implementing a circular buffer means that once you get to the end you wrap around to the beginning again - not possible to overrun the end of the array).

For example:

var container = new Array ();
var maxlen = 100;
var index = 0;

// 'store' 1538 items (only the last 'maxlen' items are kept)
for (var i=0; i<1538; i++) {
   container [index++ % maxlen] = "storing" + i;
}

// get element at index 11 (you want the 11th item in the array)
eleventh = container [(index + 11) % maxlen];

// get element at index 11 (you want the 11th item in the array)
thirtyfifth = container [(index + 35) % maxlen];

// print out all 100 elements that we have left in the array, note
// that it doesn't matter if we address past 100 - circular buffer
// so we'll simply get back to the beginning if we do that.
for (i=0; i<200; i++) {
   document.write (container[(index + i) % maxlen] + "
\n");
}