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How to Efficiently Flatten a Nested Array of Mixed Types in JavaScript?

👀 Views: 4 đŸ’Ŧ Answers: 1 📅 Created: 2025-06-03
javascript arrays performance JavaScript

I'm working on a personal project and This might be a silly question, but After trying multiple solutions online, I still can't figure this out. I'm working on a JavaScript project where I need to flatten a nested array that contains a mix of types, including numbers, strings, and other arrays. My current implementation is not performing well with larger arrays, and I'm running into issues with unexpected types causing errors. Here's what I have so far: ```javascript const nestedArray = [1, [2, 3], 'four', [5, [6, 7]], [8, 'nine']]; function flattenArray(arr) { return arr.reduce((acc, val) => { if (Array.isArray(val)) { return acc.concat(flattenArray(val)); } else { return acc.concat(val); } }, []); } console.log(flattenArray(nestedArray)); ``` When I run this code, it works fine for smaller arrays, but when I increase the depth of the nesting or the size of the array, I notice important slowdowns. Additionally, if I accidentally pass in an object instead of an array, it throws an behavior, which I need to handle gracefully. I've considered using the `Array.prototype.flat()` method, but I'm unsure how it would handle non-array types and mixed data. Is there a more efficient way to implement this that can also handle unexpected types without failing? Any suggestions on best practices for flattening nested arrays in a performant manner would be greatly appreciated! This is part of a larger application I'm building. I'd really appreciate any guidance on this. This is part of a larger application I'm building. How would you solve this? This is my first time working with Javascript latest. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this. I'm using Javascript 3.11 in this project. Thanks for taking the time to read this!