Prototype and Scriptaculous: Taking the Pain out of JavaScript

3.5. Enumerable Objects and Iterator Functions

Prototype brings higher-order functions to mainstream JavaScript in the form of enumerable objects. The Enumeration interface represents a collection objects and exposes a set of functions that allow the manipulation of these objects using iterator functions.

An iterator function is a normal JavaScript function of the form:

var iterator = function(value,index)
{
       ...
}

where the arguments to this function represent a value from the collection and the index that the value is at within the collection. Armed with an iterator function, we may make use of the functions on Enumerable.

each	Calls the iterator on each element
all	Returns true if all iterators return true
any	Returns true if any iterator returns true
collect	Maps the iterator across the collection, returning a collection of results in the same order
detect	Returns first element for which the iterator returns true
entries	Returns an array of elements
find	Same as detect
findAll	Returns all elements for which the iterator returns true
grep	Returns all elements for which a regular expression matches
include	Returns true if a given object is in the collection
inject	Collapses the collection into a value using the iterator with an additional initial accumulating parameter as an accumulator.
invoke	Invokes a member function (passing in arguments) on each element in the collection
map	Same as collect
max	Returns the maximum element
member	Same as include ...