There are many scenarios when accessing the arguments object as an array can be useful. Once the arguments object is copied to an array, the Array.prototype methods like [].map or [].filter can be used directly. To do so we can simply call Array.prototype.slice with arguments as the this object and pass no arguments, which will create a shallow copy of the arguments object as an array.

function getArgumentsAsArray () { return Array . prototype . slice . call ( arguments ); } getArgumentsAsArray ( 1 , 2 , 3 ); // > [1, 2, 3]

This, is nice, but many places you will see examples of code that uses a bound slice function directly on the arguments object.

function getArgs () { return slice ( arguments ); }

How is this slice function created? There is an example on MDN of how you can create this bound slice function doing

var slice = Function . prototype . call . bind ( Array . prototype . slice );

What is going on here? First, we need to understand the bind function. Function.prototype.bind will force a function to be executed in a specified context with the this object inside that function being whatever you decide. So if you have a function that needs a different this object bound to it, you can use Function.prototype.bind . A very simplified version of bind would look like:

function bind ( fn , thisObj ) { return function () { return fn . apply ( thisObj , arguments ); }; }

This is not the full implementation of Function.prototype.bind , but it is enough for our needs right now. So, this can be used as follows:

function returnThis () { return this ; } returnThis (); // > Window var boundReturner = bind ( returnThis , { test : 0 }); boundReturner (); // > Object {test: 0}

So now that we can bind functions, how can we use this to create a shortcut for Array.prototype.slice ? Well, in the example var slice = Function.prototype.call.bind(Array.prototype.slice); , we see that call is the function that is receiving the binding, and slice is the “object” that is bound as the this object for call . This may be confusing because slice is a function, but is still being bound as the this object. The binding is necessary because as you see in the first example of copying arguments to an array, call is being called as a method of slice. Array.prototype.slice.call(arguments) will make slice the this object for call . It the same for any method in javascript. The calling object is the this object for the method being called. So to create the bound slice shortcut function with our simple bind function we need to bind slice to call .

var slice = bind ( Function . prototype . call , Array . protoype . slice ); // or var slice = bind ( function () {}. call , []. slice );

And then to use it

function getArgs () { return slice ( arguments ); } getArgs ( 1 , 2 , 3 ); // > [1, 2, 3]

Although, if we don’t have access to a bind function, we don’t have to use it. We can utilize Function.prototype.apply to apply slice to call and pass our arguments object.

var slice = function () { return Function . prototype . call . apply ( Array . prototype . slice , arguments ); };