JS Lint Array Literal Notation with String Split

Question

I know that JSLint is only a guide and you should take what it says with a grain of salt, however, I'm curious how I can even resolve this warning without rewriting the entire function. Here is the function of interest:

function randomString(length) {
    var chars = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXTZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz'.split(''),
    str = '',
    i;

    if (!length) {
        length = randomNumber(chars.length);
    }

    for (i = 0; i < length; i++) {
        str += chars[randomNumber(chars.length)];
    }
    return str;
}

JS Lint tells me "JS Lint: Use the array literal notation []." and it is pointing to the line with string.split(). How can I satisfy JSLint without having to re-write the entire function? Is it even possible?

I am aware that there are other methods to generate random strings; I'm interested in how to resolve the JSLint warning using this method.

Answer 1

Here is your Array in literal array-notation:

[ 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M', 'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'T', 'Z', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z' ]

JSLint probably suggested it, because that way the Interpreter does not have to split the String during runtime, but rather has already the Array ready to use.

Simply generated with this PHP-Code:

php > $chars = str_split('ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXTZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz'); 
php > echo "[ '".implode("', '", $chars)."' ]";
[ 'A', 'B', 'C', 'D', 'E', 'F', 'G', 'H', 'I', 'J', 'K', 'L', 'M', 'N', 'O', 'P', 'Q', 'R', 'S', 'T', 'U', 'V', 'W', 'X', 'T', 'Z', 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'k', 'l', 'm', 'n', 'o', 'p', 'q', 'r', 's', 't', 'u', 'v', 'w', 'x', 'y', 'z' ]
php > 

Answer 2

You can call the String prototype split function with the string as the scope to avoid the warning:

var chars = String.prototype.split.call('ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXTZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz', ''), 

Don't know why JSLint complains as split is a String method.

See: https://developer.mozilla.org/en/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/String/split

this also seems to pass through without complaints:

var alphabet = 'ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXTZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz',
chars = alphabet.split("");