Why does Math.min([1,2]) return NaN?

Question

I\'ve been debugging this code for about an hour, and it looks like Math.min([1,2]) returns NaN.

var int_array = [1,2]
console.log(         


        

Answer 1

The Math.min() function actually expects a series of numbers, but it doesn't know how to handle an actual array, so it is blowing up.

You can resolve this by using the spread operator ...:

var int_array = [1,2];
console.log(Math.min(...int_array)); // returns 1

You could also accomplish this via the Function.apply() function that would essentially do the same thing but isn't as pretty :

var int_array = [1,2];
console.log(Math.min.apply(null,int_array)); // returns 1