How to break a map() loop in React

Break a map() loop in React #

To break a map() loop in React:

Call the slice() method on the array to get a portion of the array.
Call the map() method on the portion of the array.
Iterate over the portion of the array.

App.js

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export default function App() {
  const employees = [
    {id: 1, name: 'Alice', country: 'Austria'},
    {id: 2, name: 'Bob', country: 'Belgium'},
    {id: 3, name: 'Carl', country: 'Canada'},
    {id: 4, name: 'Delilah', country: 'Denmark'},
    {id: 5, name: 'Ethan', country: 'Egypt'},
  ];

  // 👇️ map() first 2 elements of array

  return (
    <div>
      {employees.slice(0, 2).map((employee, index) => {
        return (
          <div key={index}>
            <h2>name: {employee.name}</h2>
            <h2>country: {employee.country}</h2>

            <hr />
          </div>
        );
      })}
    </div>
  );
}

The Array.slice method does not modify the original array, instead it creates a new array (a shallow copy of the original array).

We passed the following 2 parameters to the slice() method:

Name	Description
`startIndex`	The index of the first element to be included in the new array
`endIndex`	Go up to, but not including this index

We specified a start index of 0 and an end index of 2, so we got a portion of the array with elements 0 and 1.

Even if the end index you provide to the Array.slice method exceeds the array's length, the method does not throw an error, but returns all array elements.

App.js

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c'];

const first100 = arr.slice(0, 100);
console.log(first100); // 👉️ ['a', 'b', 'c']

We tried to get the first 100 elements of an array, which only contains 3 elements.

As a result, the new array contains all 3 elements of the original array.

You can also use the Array.filter method before calling map().

App.js

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export default function App() {
  const employees = [
    {id: 1, name: 'Alice', country: 'Austria'},
    {id: 2, name: 'Bob', country: 'Belgium'},
    {id: 3, name: 'Carl', country: 'Canada'},
    {id: 4, name: 'Delilah', country: 'Denmark'},
    {id: 5, name: 'Ethan', country: 'Egypt'},
  ];

  // 👇️ map() LAST 2 elements of array

  return (
    <div>
      {employees
        .filter(employee => {
          return (
            employee.country === 'Belgium' || employee.country === 'Denmark'
          );
        })
        .map((employee, index) => {
          return (
            <div key={index}>
              <h2>name: {employee.name}</h2>
              <h2>country: {employee.country}</h2>

              <hr />
            </div>
          );
        })}
    </div>
  );
}

The function we passed to the filter() method gets called with each element in the array.

On each iteration, we check if the current object has a country property equal to Belgium or Denmark and return the result.

The filter() method returns an array containing only the elements for which the callback function returns a truthy value.

In the example, the map() method is only called with the objects with id of 2 and 4.

If you want to map() through the last N elements of an array in React, pass a negative index to the Array.slice() method.

App.js

Copied!
export default function App() {
  const employees = [
    {id: 1, name: 'Alice', country: 'Austria'},
    {id: 2, name: 'Bob', country: 'Belgium'},
    {id: 3, name: 'Carl', country: 'Canada'},
    {id: 4, name: 'Delilah', country: 'Denmark'},
    {id: 5, name: 'Ethan', country: 'Egypt'},
  ];

  // 👇️ map() LAST 2 elements of array

  return (
    <div>
      {employees.slice(-2).map((employee, index) => {
        return (
          <div key={index}>
            <h2>name: {employee.name}</h2>
            <h2>country: {employee.country}</h2>

            <hr />
          </div>
        );
      })}
    </div>
  );
}

Passing a negative index to the slice() method indicates an offset from the end of the array. A negative index of -2 means give me the last 2 elements of the array.

This is the same as passing array.length - 2 as an argument to the slice method.

App.js

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c', 'd', 'e'];

const last2 = arr.slice(-2);
console.log(last2); // 👉️ ['d', 'e']

const last2Again = arr.slice(arr.length - 2);
console.log(last2Again); // 👉️ ['d', 'e']

Either way, we tell the slice method, copy the last 2 elements of the array and place them in a new array.

Even if we try to get more elements than the array contains, Array.slice won't throw an error, instead it returns a new array with all elements.

index.js

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const arr = ['a', 'b', 'c'];

const last100 = arr.slice(-100);
console.log(last100); // 👉️ ['a', 'b', 'c']

In the example, we tried to get the last 100 elements of an array which only contains 3 elements, so all of the array's elements got copied to the new array.

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How to break a map() loop in React

Break a map() loop in React #

Borislav Hadzhiev