How to convert a collection to an array in javascript

Question

I'm trying to figure out how to convert a javascript collection (i.e. something returned from getElementsByTagName/etc) to a normal array so I can perform array functions on the data.

I'm looking for a solution without using any libraries and haven't been able to find any sort of elegant solutions anywhere online. Has anyone written a good util function for this problem?

Answer 1

You can do this:

var coll = document.getElementsByTagName('div');  var arr = Array.prototype.slice.call( coll, 0 ); 

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EDIT: As @Chris Nielsen noted, this fails in IE pre-9. Best would be to do some feature testing, and create a function that can handle either, or just do a loop as in the (second) solution from @brilliand.