How to insert a new element in between all elements of a JS array?

Question

I have an array [a, b, c]. I want to be able to insert a value between each elements of this array like that: [0, a, 0, b, 0, c, 0].

I gues

Answer 1

You could use .reduce():

function intersperse(arr, val) {
  return arr.reduce((acc, next) => {
    acc.push(next);
    acc.push(val);
    return acc;
  }, [val]);
}

console.log(intersperse(['a', 'b', 'c'], 0));

Or to accomplish this by modifying the original array:

function intersperse(arr, val) {
  for (let i = 0; i <= arr.length; i += 2) {
    arr.splice(i, 0, val);
  }

  return arr;
}

console.log(intersperse(['a', 'b', 'c'], 0));

Answer 2

It could be done with strings by splitting and joining.

var arr = ['a', 'b', 'c'];
var newArray = ("0," + arr.toString().split(",").join(",0,")).split(",");
console.log(newArray);

Answer 3

This looks like the intersperse algorithm but does some addition to the head and tail as well. So i call it extrasperse.

var arr         = [0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9],
    extrasperse = (x,a) => a.reduce((p,c,i) => (p[2*i+1] = c, p), Array(2*a.length+1).fill(x));

console.log(JSON.stringify(extrasperse("X",arr)));

Answer 4

Another way is to use some functional methods like zip and flat. Check out lodash.

const array = ['a', 'b', 'c']
const zeros = Array(array.length + 1).fill(0)
const result = _.zip(zeros, array).flat().filter(x => x !== undefined)
console.log(result)

<script src="https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/lodash@4.17.15/lodash.min.js"></script>

Answer 5

function insert(arr, elm) {
  var newArr = [];
  for(var i = 0; i < arr.length; i++) {   // for each element in the array arr
    newArr.push(elm);                     // add the new element to newArr
    newArr.push(arr[i]);                  // add the current element from arr
  }
  newArr.push(elm);                       // finally add the new element to the end of newArr
  return newArr;
}

console.log(insert(["a", "b", "c"], 0));

Answer 6

For getting a new array, you could concat the part an add a zero element for each element.

var array = ['a', 'b', 'c'],
    result = array.reduce((r, a) => r.concat(a, 0), [0]);
    
console.log(result);

Using the same array

var array = ['a', 'b', 'c'],
    i = 0;

while (i <= array.length) {
    array.splice(i, 0, 0);
    i += 2;
}

console.log(array);

A bit shorter with iterating from the end.

var array = ['a', 'b', 'c'],
    i = array.length;

do {
    array.splice(i, 0, 0);
} while (i--)

console.log(array);