How to get Last X Elements of an Array in JavaScript

While working with arrays in JavaScript, you may want to get the last X elements in an array.

A common use case is when you recently pushed some items onto an array, and you want to get back the latest X items.

In this post, we'll learn how to get the last X elements in an array in JavaScript.

Getting the last X elements in an array

Let's first start with an example array:

JAVASCRIPT
const array = ["apple", "banana", "orange", "pear", "plum"];

We can access the last X elements in this array by using the built-in slice() method.

JAVASCRIPT
const array = ["apple", "banana", "orange", "pear", "plum"];

const lastXElements = array.slice(-x);

For example, if you want the last 2 elements in the array, you can use the following code:

JAVASCRIPT
const array = ["apple", "banana", "orange", "pear", "plum"];

const last2Elements = array.slice(-2);

console.log(last2Elements);

BASH
(2) ['pear', 'plum']
    0: "pear"
    1: "plum"
    length: 2

Usually, the splice method is used with a positive value, but when you pass it a negative value, it will start from the last element in the array, which is what we want in this case.

Conclusion

In this post, we learned how to get the last X elements in an array in JavaScript.

You can just call the slice method with a negative value so that it will start from the last element in the array and therefore return the desired elements.

Hope this post has been useful to you. Happy coding!

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