The Javascript array does not function like a typical array

I am currently facing a perplexing issue while working with the Twitter API.

Below is the script causing the confusion:

const Twitter = require('twitter-api-stream')
const twitterCredentials = require('./credentials').twitter

const twitterApi = new Twitter(twitterCredentials.consumerKey, twitterCredentials.consumerSecret, function(){
    console.log(arguments)
})

twitterApi.getUsersTweets('everycolorbot', 1, twitterCredentials.accessToken, twitterCredentials.accessTokenSecret, (error, result) => {
    if (error) {
        console.error(error)
    }
    if (result) {
        console.log(result) // outputs an array of json objects
        console.log(result.length) //outputs 3506 for some reason (it's only an array of 1)
        console.log(result[0]) // outputs a opening bracket ('[')
        console.log(result[0].text) // outputs undefined
    }
})

This script calls the following function to interact with Twitter:

TwitterApi.prototype.getUsersTweets = function (screenName, statusCount, userAccessToken, userRefreshToken,cb ) {
    var count = statusCount || 10;
    var screenName = screenName || "";

    _oauth.get(
        "https://api.twitter.com/1.1/statuses/user_timeline.json?count=" + count + "&screen_name=" + screenName
        , userAccessToken
        , userRefreshToken
        , cb
    );
};

The output seems positive when logging the result itself:

[
  {
    "created_at": "Thu Sep 01 13:31:23 +0000 2016",
    "id": 771339671632838656,
    "id_str": "771339671632838656",
    "text": "0xe07732",
    "truncated": false,
    ...
  }
]

However, I encounter issues accessing this array:

console.log(result.length) //outputs 3506 for some reason (it's only an array of 1)
console.log(result[0]) // outputs a opening bracket ('[')
console.log(result[0].text) // outputs undefined

I revisited the API documentation for the user_timeline, but did not find any special output mentioned.

Any suggestions?

Update

Thanks @nicematt for pointing out the solution.

To clarify the fix, I updated my code as follows and now getting the desired result:

if (result) {
    let tweet = JSON.parse(result)[0] // parses the json and returns the first index
    console.log(tweet.text) // outputs '0xe07732'
}

Thank you for your assistance!

Answer №1

The outcome is a String and when you access it using indexing (result[0], (where the number 0 is converted to a string), it is almost the same as using result.charAt(0)). This is why result[0] equals "["–because it represents the first specified character. You need to remember to parse the result as JSON data.

JSON.parse(result).length // likely 1

In addition, result.text is undefined because result (a string) behaves like an Object (although it is not an instance of one), allowing lookups and getters to occur within itself.

I would also explain the distinction between str[0] and str.charAt(0):

str[0] // equivalent to str['0'], operates as a getter. The number 0 gets converted to 
       // a string (since every key in an object
       // is treated as a string in ECMAScript)

str.charAt(0) // retrieves/looks up String#charAt, invokes it
              // without a new `this` context and with the argument: 0

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