The difference between for…of and for…in loops in JavaScript

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When working with JavaScript, understanding the difference between for…of and for…in loops is crucial for writing clean, efficient code. While they might look similar, they serve different purposes and work with different data structures.

With Arrays:

  • for...of gives you the actual elements
  • for...in gives you the indices (as strings) 
const data = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry'];

for (let item of data) {
    console.log(item);
}
// Output:
// apple
// banana  
// cherry

const data = ['apple', 'banana', 'cherry'];

for (let index in data) {
    console.log(index);
}
// Output:
// 0
// 1
// 2

With Strings:

  • for...of gives you each char in the word
  • for...in gives you the indices (as strings) 
const text = "hello";

for (let char of text) {
    console.log(char); // h, e, l, l, o
}

for (let index in text) {
    console.log(index); // 0, 1, 2, 3, 4
}

With Objects:

  • for … of doesn’t work directly with plain objects (This would throw an error)
  • for … in gives you key value for each element 
const person = { name: 'John', age: 30, city: 'NYC' };

// for...in works with objects
for (let key in person) {
    console.log(key, person[key]);
}
// Output: name John, age 30, city NYC

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