Converting an array to a string in Javascript

Question

I have a multi-dimensional array like this:

1 2 3

4 5 6

Now I need to convert this array into a string like 1,2,3;4,5,6 .

Can any one suggest how to do this, please?

Answer 1

simply use the join method on the array.

> [[1,2,3],[4,5,6]].join(';')
'1,2,3;4,5,6'

It's lucky that you simply don't have to consider how the apply the join method on the inner lists, because a list is joined by comma by default. when a list is coerced into a string, it by default uses commas to separate the items.

Answer 2

As it was already mentioned by qiao, join() is not recursive.
But if you handle the recursion yourself you should acquire the desired result, although in a rather inelegant way.

var array = [[1,2,3],[5,6,7]];
    var result = [];

    array.forEach(
             function(el){
                 result.push(
                      el.join(",")
                 );
             });

    result.join(";");

Answer 3

If you need to serialize an array into a string and then deserialize it later to get an array from the string you might want to take a look at JSON :

http://www.openjs.com/scripts/data/json_encode.php

Try this:

 
 
 
 
  
  
  array.toString();
 
 
  

See here for reference: http://www.w3schools.com/jsref/jsref_tostring_array.asp

• See answer by qiao for a much nicer approach to multidimensional arrays like this.