simple string split is returning object instead array

Question

I'm trying a simple string split in NodeJS, but it is returning an object, not array.

var mytext = "a,b,c,d,e,f,g,h,i,j,k";
var arr = mytext.split(",");
console.log(typeof mytext); <======= output string
console.log(typeof arr);    <======= output object

jsfiddle: http://jsfiddle.net/f4NnQ/

why?

Answer 1

The output of String.prototype.split is an Array and that is an Object.

console.log(typeof []);
// object

You can confirm that the returned object is an array, like this

console.log(Object.prototype.toString.call(arr));
// [object Array]
console.log(arr);
// [ 'a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e', 'f', 'g', 'h', 'i', 'j', 'k' ]

Quoting from the MDN Documentation of String.prototype.split,

The split() method splits a String object into an array of strings by separating the string into substrings.

Answer 2

Arrays are objects in javascript.

If you want to check if its an array -

you can do -

Array.isArray(arr)