Fastest way to duplicate an array in JavaScript - slice vs. 'for' loop

Question

In order to duplicate an array in JavaScript: which of the following is faster to use?

###Slice method

var dup_array = original_array.slice();
<         


        

Answer 1

In ES6, you can simply utilize the Spread syntax.

Example:

let arr = ['a', 'b', 'c'];
let arr2 = [...arr];

Please note that the spread operator generates a completely new array, so modifying one won't affect the other.

Example:

arr2.push('d') // becomes ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd']
console.log(arr) // while arr retains its values ['a', 'b', 'c']

Answer 2

I put together a quick demo: http://jsbin.com/agugo3/edit

My results on Internet Explorer 8 are 156, 782, and 750, which would indicate slice is much faster in this case.

Answer 3

Benchmark time!

function log(data) {
  document.getElementById("log").textContent += data + "\n";
}

benchmark = (() => {
  time_function = function(ms, f, num) {
    var z = 0;
    var t = new Date().getTime();
    for (z = 0;
      ((new Date().getTime() - t) < ms); z++)
      f(num);
    return (z)
  }

  function clone1(arr) {
    return arr.slice(0);
  }

  function clone2(arr) {
    return [...arr]
  }

  function clone3(arr) {
    return [].concat(arr);
  }

  Array.prototype.clone = function() {
    return this.map(e => Array.isArray(e) ? e.clone() : e);
  };

  function clone4(arr) {
    return arr.clone();
  }


  function benchmark() {
    function compare(a, b) {
      if (a[1] > b[1]) {
        return -1;
      }
      if (a[1] < b[1]) {
        return 1;
      }
      return 0;
    }

    funcs = [clone1, clone2, clone3, clone4];
    results = [];
    funcs.forEach((ff) => {
      console.log("Benchmarking: " + ff.name);
      var s = time_function(2500, ff, Array(1024));
      results.push([ff, s]);
      console.log("Score: " + s);

    })
    return results.sort(compare);
  }
  return benchmark;
})()
log("Starting benchmark...\n");
res = benchmark();

console.log("Winner: " + res[0][0].name + " !!!");
count = 1;
res.forEach((r) => {
  log((count++) + ". " + r[0].name + " score: " + Math.floor(10000 * r[1] / res[0][1]) / 100 + ((count == 2) ? "% *winner*" : "% speed of winner.") + " (" + Math.round(r[1] * 100) / 100 + ")");
});
log("\nWinner code:\n");
log(res[0][0].toString());

<textarea rows="50" cols="80" style="font-size: 16; resize:none; border: none;" id="log"></textarea>

The benchmark will run for 10s since you click the button.

My results:

Chrome (V8 engine):

1. clone1 score: 100% *winner* (4110764)
2. clone3 score: 74.32% speed of winner. (3055225)
3. clone2 score: 30.75% speed of winner. (1264182)
4. clone4 score: 21.96% speed of winner. (902929)

Firefox (SpiderMonkey Engine):

1. clone1 score: 100% *winner* (8448353)
2. clone3 score: 16.44% speed of winner. (1389241)
3. clone4 score: 5.69% speed of winner. (481162)
4. clone2 score: 2.27% speed of winner. (192433)

Winner code:

function clone1(arr) {
    return arr.slice(0);
}

Winner engine:

SpiderMonkey (Mozilla/Firefox)

Answer 4

Remember .slice() won't work for two-dimensional arrays. You'll need a function like this:

function copy(array) {
  return array.map(function(arr) {
    return arr.slice();
  });
}