up vote 14 down vote favorite
1

I want to create a function in javascript with a variable amount of arguments. The next example is how I want to call this function:

myFunction(1,2);
myFunction(1,2,3);
myFunction(1,2,3,4);
myFunction(1,2,3,4,5);
myFunction(1,2,3,4,5,6);

Anyone knows how to define this function?

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4  
@TJHeuvel I don't agree, this is not the same question... Here tlaks about number of parameters and the other about default parameters – Jean-Charles Sep 9 '11 at 13:59
1  
possible duplicate of JavaScript variable number of arguments to function – Alexis King Jan 21 '15 at 5:59
up vote 24 down vote accepted

You can access the arguments by their ordinal position without the need to state them in the prototype as follows:

function myFunction() {
  for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++)
    alert(arguments[i]);
}

myFunction(1, 2, "three");

>>1
>>2
>>three

Or if you really are passing in a set of semantically related numbers you could use an array;

function myFunction(arr) { ... }
result = myFunction([1,2,3]);
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I also saw this solution in the book: "Javascript, the definitive guide". Thanks. – McSas Sep 13 '11 at 2:56
up vote 2 down vote

If an argument is not present, use the default. Like this...

function accident() {
    //Mandatory Arguments
    var driver = arguments[0];
    var condition = arguments[1]

    //Optional Arguments
    var blame_on = (arguments[2]) ? arguments[2] : "Irresponsible tree" ;
}

accident("Me","Drunk");
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up vote 2 down vote

Use the 'arguments' variable like this :

function myFunction() {
    alert(arguments.length + ' arguments');
    for( var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++ ) {
        alert(arguments[i]);
    }
 }

Call the methods as you did before

myFunction(1,2);
myFunction(1,2,3,4,5,6);
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up vote 1 down vote

As an add-on: You can assign values to the unnamed function parameters, as in (german wiki)

arguments[0] = 5;
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