Convert NodeList to array

Question

I'm having a hard time converting a NodeList to an array in IE 8. The following works perfectly in Chrome, but in IE 8 toArray() is not recognized as valid:

NodeList.prototype.toArray = function() {
    var a = [];

    for (var i = 0, len = this.length; i < len; i++) {
        a[i] = this[i];
    }

    return a;
}

document.all.tags("div").toArray();

I tried adding a prototype function to an array just to check my sanity and it works correctly. That makes me think IE 8 doesn't actually return a NodeList? Here's a full example:

http://jsfiddle.net/e4RbH/

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

First, don't use document.all -- it's non-standard and deprecated. Use document.getElementsByTagName to get the DIV elements in your case.

Second, don't extend DOM objects such as NodeList -- built-in objects are a very strange breed and are not required to behave like any other objects that you generally work with. See this article for an in-depth explanation of this: What's wrong with extending the DOM.