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Madza
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Posted on • Edited on • Originally published at blog.madza.dev

24 modern ES6 code snippets to solve practical JS problems

#javascript #productivity #webdev #beginners

I hand-picked some of the most useful code snippets from 30 seconds of code. It's an awesome resource, go ahead and show it some ❤️.

In this article I tried to sorted them based on their practical use, answering common questions you may face in your project:

1.How to hide all elements specified?

const hide = (...el) => [...el].forEach(e => (e.style.display = 'none'));

// Example
hide(document.querySelectorAll('img')); // Hides all <img> elements on the page
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2.How to check if the element has the specified class?

const hasClass = (el, className) => el.classList.contains(className);

// Example
hasClass(document.querySelector('p.special'), 'special'); // true
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3.How to toggle a class for an element?

const toggleClass = (el, className) => el.classList.toggle(className);

// Example
toggleClass(document.querySelector('p.special'), 'special'); 
// The paragraph will not have the 'special' class anymore
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4.How to get the scroll position of the current page?

const getScrollPosition = (el = window) => ({
  x: el.pageXOffset !== undefined ? el.pageXOffset : el.scrollLeft,
  y: el.pageYOffset !== undefined ? el.pageYOffset : el.scrollTop
});

// Example
getScrollPosition(); // {x: 0, y: 200}
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5.How to smooth-scroll to the top of the page?

const scrollToTop = () => {
  const c = document.documentElement.scrollTop || document.body.scrollTop;
  if (c > 0) {
    window.requestAnimationFrame(scrollToTop);
    window.scrollTo(0, c - c / 8);
  }
};

// Example
scrollToTop();
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6.How to check if the parent element contains the child element?

const elementContains = (parent, child) => parent !== child && parent.contains(child);

// Examples
elementContains(document.querySelector('head'), document.querySelector('title')); 
// true
elementContains(document.querySelector('body'), document.querySelector('body')); // false
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7.How to check if the element specified is visible in the viewport?

const elementIsVisibleInViewport = (el, partiallyVisible = false) => {
  const { top, left, bottom, right } = el.getBoundingClientRect();
  const { innerHeight, innerWidth } = window;
  return partiallyVisible
    ? ((top > 0 && top < innerHeight) || (bottom > 0 && bottom < innerHeight)) &&
        ((left > 0 && left < innerWidth) || (right > 0 && right < innerWidth))
    : top >= 0 && left >= 0 && bottom <= innerHeight && right <= innerWidth;
};

// Examples
elementIsVisibleInViewport(el); // (not fully visible)
elementIsVisibleInViewport(el, true); // (partially visible)
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8.How to fetch all images within an element?

const getImages = (el, includeDuplicates = false) => {
  const images = [...el.getElementsByTagName('img')].map(img => img.getAttribute('src'));
  return includeDuplicates ? images : [...new Set(images)];
};

// Examples
getImages(document, true); // ['image1.jpg', 'image2.png', 'image1.png', '...']
getImages(document, false); // ['image1.jpg', 'image2.png', '...']
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9.How to figure out if the device is a mobile device or a desktop/laptop?

const detectDeviceType = () =>
  /Android|webOS|iPhone|iPad|iPod|BlackBerry|IEMobile|Opera Mini/i.test(navigator.userAgent)
    ? 'Mobile'
    : 'Desktop';

// Example
detectDeviceType(); // "Mobile" or "Desktop"
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10.How to get the current URL?

const currentURL = () => window.location.href;

// Example
currentURL(); // 'https://google.com'
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11.How to create an object containing the parameters of the current URL?

const getURLParameters = url =>
  (url.match(/([^?=&]+)(=([^&]*))/g) || []).reduce(
    (a, v) => ((a[v.slice(0, v.indexOf('='))] = v.slice(v.indexOf('=') + 1)), a),
    {}
  );

// Examples
getURLParameters('http://url.com/page?n=Adam&s=Smith'); // {n: 'Adam', s: 'Smith'}
getURLParameters('google.com'); // {}
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12.How to encode a set of form elements as an object?

const formToObject = form =>
  Array.from(new FormData(form)).reduce(
    (acc, [key, value]) => ({
      ...acc,
      [key]: value
    }),
    {}
  );

// Example
formToObject(document.querySelector('#form')); // { email: 'test@email.com', name: 'Test Name' }
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13.How to retrieve a set of properties indicated by the given selectors from an object?

const get = (from, ...selectors) =>
  [...selectors].map(s =>
    s
      .replace(/\[([^\[\]]*)\]/g, '.$1.')
      .split('.')
      .filter(t => t !== '')
      .reduce((prev, cur) => prev && prev[cur], from)
  );
const obj = { selector: { to: { val: 'val to select' } }, target: [1, 2, { a: 'test' }] };

// Example
get(obj, 'selector.to.val', 'target[0]', 'target[2].a'); // ['val to select', 1, 'test']
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14.How to invoke the provided function after wait (in milliseconds)?

const delay = (fn, wait, ...args) => setTimeout(fn, wait, ...args);
delay(
  function(text) {
    console.log(text);
  },
  1000,
  'later'
); 

// Logs 'later' after one second.
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15.How to trigger a specific event on a given element, optionally passing custom data?

const triggerEvent = (el, eventType, detail) =>
  el.dispatchEvent(new CustomEvent(eventType, { detail }));

// Examples
triggerEvent(document.getElementById('myId'), 'click');
triggerEvent(document.getElementById('myId'), 'click', { username: 'bob' });
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16.How to remove an event listener from an element?

const off = (el, evt, fn, opts = false) => el.removeEventListener(evt, fn, opts);

const fn = () => console.log('!');
document.body.addEventListener('click', fn);
off(document.body, 'click', fn); // no longer logs '!' upon clicking on the page
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17.How to get readable format of the given number of milliseconds?

const formatDuration = ms => {
  if (ms < 0) ms = -ms;
  const time = {
    day: Math.floor(ms / 86400000),
    hour: Math.floor(ms / 3600000) % 24,
    minute: Math.floor(ms / 60000) % 60,
    second: Math.floor(ms / 1000) % 60,
    millisecond: Math.floor(ms) % 1000
  };
  return Object.entries(time)
    .filter(val => val[1] !== 0)
    .map(([key, val]) => `${val} ${key}${val !== 1 ? 's' : ''}`)
    .join(', ');
};

// Examples
formatDuration(1001); // '1 second, 1 millisecond'
formatDuration(34325055574); // '397 days, 6 hours, 44 minutes, 15 seconds, 574 milliseconds'
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18.How to get the difference (in days) between two dates?

const getDaysDiffBetweenDates = (dateInitial, dateFinal) =>
  (dateFinal - dateInitial) / (1000 * 3600 * 24);

// Example
getDaysDiffBetweenDates(new Date('2017-12-13'), new Date('2017-12-22')); // 9
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19.How to make a GET request to the passed URL?

const httpGet = (url, callback, err = console.error) => {
  const request = new XMLHttpRequest();
  request.open('GET', url, true);
  request.onload = () => callback(request.responseText);
  request.onerror = () => err(request);
  request.send();
};

httpGet(
  'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts/1',
  console.log
); 

// Logs: {"userId": 1, "id": 1, "title": "sample title", "body": "my text"}
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20.How to make a POST request to the passed URL?

const httpPost = (url, data, callback, err = console.error) => {
  const request = new XMLHttpRequest();
  request.open('POST', url, true);
  request.setRequestHeader('Content-type', 'application/json; charset=utf-8');
  request.onload = () => callback(request.responseText);
  request.onerror = () => err(request);
  request.send(data);
};

const newPost = {
  userId: 1,
  id: 1337,
  title: 'Foo',
  body: 'bar bar bar'
};
const data = JSON.stringify(newPost);
httpPost(
  'https://jsonplaceholder.typicode.com/posts',
  data,
  console.log
); 

// Logs: {"userId": 1, "id": 1337, "title": "Foo", "body": "bar bar bar"}
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21.How to create a counter with the specified range, step and duration for the specified selector?

const counter = (selector, start, end, step = 1, duration = 2000) => {
  let current = start,
    _step = (end - start) * step < 0 ? -step : step,
    timer = setInterval(() => {
      current += _step;
      document.querySelector(selector).innerHTML = current;
      if (current >= end) document.querySelector(selector).innerHTML = end;
      if (current >= end) clearInterval(timer);
    }, Math.abs(Math.floor(duration / (end - start))));
  return timer;
};

// Example
counter('#my-id', 1, 1000, 5, 2000); // Creates a 2-second timer for the element with id="my-id"
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22.How to copy a string to the clipboard?

const copyToClipboard = str => {
  const el = document.createElement('textarea');
  el.value = str;
  el.setAttribute('readonly', '');
  el.style.position = 'absolute';
  el.style.left = '-9999px';
  document.body.appendChild(el);
  const selected =
    document.getSelection().rangeCount > 0 ? document.getSelection().getRangeAt(0) : false;
  el.select();
  document.execCommand('copy');
  document.body.removeChild(el);
  if (selected) {
    document.getSelection().removeAllRanges();
    document.getSelection().addRange(selected);
  }
};

// Example
copyToClipboard('Lorem ipsum'); // 'Lorem ipsum' copied to clipboard.
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23.How to find out if the browser tab of the page is focused?

const isBrowserTabFocused = () => !document.hidden;

// Example
isBrowserTabFocused(); // true
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24.How to create a directory, if it does not exist?

const fs = require('fs');
const createDirIfNotExists = dir => (!fs.existsSync(dir) ? fs.mkdirSync(dir) : undefined);

// Example
createDirIfNotExists('test'); // creates the directory 'test', if it doesn't exist
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I hope you enjoyed the read!

Feel free to follow me on Twitter, LinkedIn, Hashnode and DEV for more!

Latest comments (26)

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siddharthshyniben profile image
Siddharth •

You don't need to do [...el] I think in the first one. Is there any reason you do that?

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piterden profile image
Denis Efremov • 
const hide = (...el) => [...el].forEach(e => (e.style.display = 'none'));

This is wrong! ^

const hide = (el) => [...el].forEach(e => (e.style.display = 'none'));

This is correct! ^

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zarabotaet profile image
Dima •

Congrat, you reinvented
yarn add jquery

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cameronapak profile image
cameronapak •

Thanks for posting this! I'll definitely keep them saved and in mind. I see that a lot of people are saying some comment about how something isn't best practice, but I'm happy you even posted this. Even if there are better ways, most of these are great examples and approaches I would've never thought about on my own.

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jscripter profile image
Jscripter •

I didn't know about the classList.toggle. Thanks.
In nodejs there is native package called querystring for url parameters.
I find it useful copy to clipboard, used it in a project.

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fetishlace profile image
fetishlace •

To point 12.
Instead of confusing reduce I would do rather:
const formToObject = form => Object.fromEntries([...new FormData(form)])
(when Object.fromEntries() is available indeed...)

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fetishlace profile image
fetishlace • • Edited

To point 11. It is maybe modern JS but there is URL object for these things for some time, no need for regexping
You have all the parameters in URL searchParams object
const params = new URL(window.location.href).searchParams
You can just spread it into entries
[...params] or [...params.entries()]
or if you want to have object so much (even it makes not much sense here, since you can have valid params string with multiple same parameter with different values and then you will loose them except last one, since object cannot have multiple same keys...)
Object.fromEntries([...params])

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lukegarrigan profile image
Luke Garrigan •

Thanks for the blog, some very nice solutions to problems I bump into regularly!

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webreflection profile image
Andrea Giammarchi • • Edited

The getURLParameters is not really safe/useful, I'd go instead with:

const getURLParameters = url => [
  ...new URL(url).searchParams
].reduce(
  (obj, [key, value]) => ((obj[key] = value), obj),
  {}
);

or, for possible duplicated keys:

const getURLParameters = url => [
  ...new URL(url).searchParams
].reduce(
  (obj, [key, value]) => ((
    obj[key] = key in obj ? [].concat(obj[key], value) : value
  ), obj),
  Object.create(null)
);
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3zzy profile image
Ibrahim •

hasClass(document.querySelector('p.special'), 'special'); doesn't make sense. If you're already searching with the class in selector, couldn't you just do if (document.querySelector('p.special')) ?

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