JavaScript: The Definitive Guide, Fourth Edition

Name

Array.toString( ) — convert an array to a string

Availability

JavaScript 1.1; JScript 2.0; ECMAScript v1

Inherits from/Overrides

Overrides Object.toString( )

Synopsis

                  array.toString( )

Returns

A string representation of array.

Throws

TypeError

If this method is invoked on an object that is not an Array.

Description

The toString( ) method of an array converts an array to a string and returns the string. When an array is used in a string context, JavaScript automatically converts it to a string by calling this method. On some occasions, however, you may want to call toString( ) explicitly.

toString( ) converts an array to a string by first converting each of the array elements to strings (by calling their toString( ) methods). Once each element is converted to a string, it outputs them in a comma-separated list. This return value is the same string that would be returned by the join( ) method with no arguments.

Bugs

In Netscape implementations, when Version 1.2 of the language is explicitly specified, toString( ) returns its list of comma-and-space-separated array elements within square brackets using array literal notation. This occurs, for example, when the language attribute of a <script> tag is explicitly specified as “JavaScript1.2”.

See Also

Array.toLocaleString( ), Object.toString( )