How Many Arguments Can a JavaScript Function Really Handle?

Is There a Limit to the Number of Arguments JavaScript Functions Can Accept?

While JavaScript functions are designed to accept "any" number of arguments, as demonstrated by the function f( that takes an arbitrary number of inputs, there are practical considerations to bear in mind.

Implementation-Specific Limits

The maximum number of arguments is not explicitly defined in the specification; hence, it is implementation-specific. Browsers and JavaScript environments can impose their own limits based on factors such as memory constraints and performance optimizations.

Experiment Results

An experiment was conducted using the testArgs function to establish approximate limits in various browsers:

• Chrome 33: 65,535 arguments (failed due to maximum call stack size exceeded)
• Firefox 27: 262,143 arguments (failed due to arguments array size being too large)
• Internet Explorer 11: 131,071 arguments (failed due to out of stack space error)
• Opera 12: 1,048,576 arguments (failed due to too large argArray for apply)

Eval Tests

Another experiment using eval revealed different results:

• Chrome 33: 32,767 arguments (failed due to too many arguments in function call)
• Firefox 27: 32,767 arguments (failed due to script size being too large)
• Internet Explorer 11: 32,767 arguments (failed due to out of memory error)
• Opera 12: 4,194,303 arguments (failed due to out of memory script termination)

These experiments illustrate that the practical limit for arguments is significantly lower than the theoretical maximum of (2^32)-1 and varies across browsers and environments. Therefore, it is advisable to avoid passing excessive numbers of arguments to functions to ensure proper execution and prevent errors.

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