Is there a way to join the elements in an js array, but let the last separator be different?

Question

What I want is something like Array.join(separator), but which takes a second argument Array.join(separator, beforeLastElement), so when I say [foo, bar, baz].join(", ", " or") I would get "foo, bar or baz". I guess I could write a function that used Array.slice to separate out the last element, but is there some well known method that I could use instead?

Answer 1

May I suggest:

['tom', 'dick', 'harry'].join(', ').replace(/, ([^,]*)$/, ' and $1') > "tom, dick and harry" 

Answer 2

There's no predefined function, because it's quite simple.

var a = ['a', 'b', 'c']; var str = a.slice(0, -1).join(',')+' or '+a.slice(-1); 

There's also a specification problem for the main use case of such a function which is natural language formatting. For example if we were to use the Oxford comma logic we would have a different result than what you're looking for:

// make a list in the Oxford comma style (eg "a, b, c, and d") // Examples with conjunction "and": // ["a"] -> "a" // ["a", "b"] -> "a and b" // ["a", "b", "c"] -> "a, b, and c" exports.oxford = function(arr, conjunction, ifempty){     let l = arr.length;     if (!l) return ifempty;     if (l<2) return arr[0];     if (l<3) return arr.join(` ${conjunction} `);     arr = arr.slice();     arr[l-1] = `${conjunction} ${arr[l-1]}`;     return arr.join(", "); } 

So it seems better to let this problem in userland.