How come the behavior of Array.prototype.push() results in creating an endlessly nested array when used on itself?

While testing out the following code:

const animals = ['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep'];

animals.push(animals)
console.log(animals);

An error occurred in my testing environment:

Issue: Maximum call stack size exceeded.

What is causing this code to create an endlessly nested array?

Answer №1

When you use the animals.push(animals) method, you are essentially pushing the array itself into the array. This results in a single array that keeps growing in size, with each new element being a reference to the original array. This leads to a nested structure like this:

['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep',
    ['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep',
        ['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep',
            ['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep',
                ...
            ]
        ]
    ]
]

Contrary to popular belief, this does not consume infinite memory, as it is all contained within one array. You can think of it as:

    animals (ref)
     │
     │  ┌───────────────────────────────┐
     v  v                               │ 
   ┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬───│───────┐
   │ "pigs"   │ "goats"  │ "sheep"  │ (ref)     │
   └──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───────────┘ 

If you wish to avoid this recursive behavior and just push ['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep'] without affecting the original array, you should create a new array with those values:

animals.push([...animals])

Now, your structure will look like this:

['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep', ['pigs', 'goats', 'sheep']]

Visualizing this arrangement:

    animals (ref)
     │
     │
     v
   ┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┬───────────┐
   │ "pigs"   │ "goats"  │ "sheep"  │ (ref)     │
   └──────────┴──────────┴──────────┴───│───────┘ 
     ┌──────────────────────────────────┘
     v
   ┌──────────┬──────────┬──────────┐
   │ "pigs"   │ "goats"  │ "sheep"  │
   └──────────┴──────────┴──────────┘

As depicted, the nested array is now a separate array with 3 entries instead of 4.

Answer №2

This array may not be infinite in its nesting, but attempting to traverse it leads to an endless recursion.

animals = [ 'dog', 'cat' ];
animals.push(animals);
animals.push('zebra');

So when you try to

console.log(animals);

This is what happens (in pseudo-code):

for(each element in the array)
    console.log(element);

element 0: dog
element 1: cat
element 2: an array - let's expand it!

To expand that array (which is the same array), it basically starts over:

element 0: dog
element 1: cat
element 2: an array - let's expand it!

And this cycle continues indefinitely. It never reaches the 'zebra' entry at any point.

Essentially, this is what happens when a recursive function keeps calling itself without any conditions:

function recur()
{
 recur();
}

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