Array Power, Part I - DHTML Lab

Array Power, Part I
bringing the IE Array object up to par

This column is part of the DHTML Lab thread:

It can be appreciated by users of any browser, any version.
In-page examples will work only in Explorer 4+ and Navigator 4+.

As we all know, Internet Explorer has given us the expanded Document Object Model and associated properties and methods, making it a truly programmable DHTML browser. Netscape Navigator has fallen behind in its DOM implementation, with all its hopes pinned on the Gecko engine, still in beta.

One field where Navigator is ahead of Explorer, however, is in its JavaScript engine, which boasts a more powerful core language.

For example, the Navigator Array object has almost twice the number of built-in methods that the Explorer Array object has. These methods are invaluable in the creation of DHTML Web Applications.

In this two-part article, we will use the prototype property of the Array object to create new methods for Explorer, bringing it up to the Navigator and ECMAScript standard.

We will create a series of functions that you can make available to all your pages through an external JavaScript file, allowing both browsers to use the same Array methods.

Prerequisites

Familiarity with the prototype property of JavaScript objects. See Doc Javascript's Inheritance through Prototypes