Why do some operations not alter an array that was passed to a function?

Question

Scenario 1:

var myArray = [2, 3, 4, 5];
function doStuff(arr) {
  arr = [];
}
doStuff(myArray);
console.log(myArray); // [2,3,4,5]
         


        

Answer 1

arr is a reference to the array, which exists somewhere in memory (you don't know where, and you don't care). When you say arr = [], you're creating a new array somewhere in memory, and changing arr to refer to that new array. The old array still exists in memory. If there was nothing referring to the old array then it would eventually be garbage collected, but in this case it's still referred to by myArray so it remains untouched.

arr.pop() on the other hand is modifying the array, not changing references.