guarded-array

A slow bounds checked array to help with debugging.

Example

var guard = require('guarded-array')

//First create any old array
var array = [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]

//Then we protect it using guard!
var guardedArray = guard(array)

//The guarded array works just like a normal array:
console.log(guardedArray.length, guardedArray.slice())

//Accessing elements in the middle of array is ok
guardedArray[3] = 100

//Writes propagate to underlying array
console.log(array)

//But reading out of bounds throws an exception
try {
  console.log(guardedArray[-1])
} catch(e) {
  console.log(e)
}

try {
  console.log(guardedArray[10])
} catch(e) {
  console.log(e)
}

//You can also create guarded arrays for subarrays of arrays
var subGuard = guard(array, 1, 3)

//Now you can only access elements in the range 1-3 of array safely
console.log(subGuard[1], subGuard[2])

//Writing/reading out of bounds throws an exception
console.log(subGuard[3])

//Use this module in your unit tests to help track down
//pesky off-by-one errors

Output:

6 [ 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 ]
[ 0, 1, 2, 100, 4, 5 ]
[Error: read out of bounds: -1]
[Error: read out of bounds: 10]
1 2

Error: read out of bounds: 3
    at Array.get [as 3] (/Users/mikolalysenko/GitHub/guarded-array/guarded-array.js:39:15)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/mikolalysenko/GitHub/guarded-array/example/example.js:38:21)
    at Module._compile (module.js:456:26)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:474:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:356:32)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:312:12)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:497:10)
    at startup (node.js:119:16)
    at node.js:902:3

Install

npm install guarded-array

API

require('guarded-array')(array[,lo, hi])

Creates a guarded view of array. Attempting to access outside of the bounds [lo,hi) or changing the length of the array will result in an exception.

• array is an ordinary JavaScript array
• lo is an optional lower bound (default 0)
• hi is an optional upper bound (default array.length)

Returns A guarded view of the array object. Writes to the guarded array propagate down to the underlying array object. Out of bounds access will trigger an exception.

Notes/Warnings

Array.isArray doesn't work on guarded-array. I'm open to suggestions on how to get this to work.

Credits

(c) 2014 Mikola Lysenko. MIT License