ActionScript for Flash MX: The Definitive Guide, Second Edition

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Chapter 11: Arrays

series of characters) called a delimiter. Finally, join() returns the resulting string. The

syntax of join() is:

arrayName.join(delimiter)

where delimiter is the string used to separate the converted elements of arrayName.

If

delimiter is unspecified, it defaults to a comma. The result of a join() statement is

most easily understood through an example:

var siteSections = ["animation", "short films", "games"];

// Sets siteTitle to "animation>> short films>> games"

var siteTitle = siteSections.join(">> ");

// Sets siteTitle to "animation:short films:games"

var siteTitle = siteSections.join(":");

Note that join() does not modify the array upon which it is invoked. Instead, it

returns a string based on that array.

When called without a delimiter argument, join() behaves exactly like toString().

Because toString() does not add a space after the comma it uses to delimit elements,

we may wish to use join() with “, ” as the delimiter if we want nicely formatted out-

put:

var x = [1, 2, 3];

trace(x.join(", ")); // Displays: "1, 2, 3" instead of "1,2,3"

The join() method has a potentially surprising result when used on an array contain-

ing elements that are themselves arrays. Since join() converts elements to strings, and

arrays are converted to strings via their toString()