javascript for loop won't iterate

Question

novice programmer here, I'm trying an exercise where the objective is to print a string backwards. Here is my code:

function firstReverse(str) { 
 for(var i=str.length - 1; i >= 0;i --) {
 return(str[i]);
 }
};
firstReverse("riyad");

I keep getting the return of letter "d", but not the entire string. Not sure what is wrong here? Please help!

• Claudio Redi: After the first return, you left the function. When you execute return the method is abandoned, nothing else is executed after that.
• scrappedcola: You need to look at what the return function does. That is kind of key to your issue.
• Marcelo Luz: Yeah your function returns in the first iteration so you would only get the last letter. You cannot have a return statement since it immediately exits the function. Save the answers in a variable and then after the for loop return the variable.
• adeneo: As you're learning, this how you'd generally do it -> "riyad".split('').reverse().join('')

Answer 1

You could try this:

function firstReverse(str) { 
 for(var i=str.length - 1; i >= 0;i --) {
 console.log(str[i]);
 }
};

I keep getting the return of letter "d", but not the entire string

It is reasonable that you take this output, because the first time that your code steps into the for statement it will exit from it due to the return statement. In other words, you for statement will be executed only for the first step.

function firstReverse(str) { 
 for(var i=str.length - 1; i >= 0;i --) {
 document.write(str[i]);
 }
};
firstReverse("riyad");

• jfriend00: Please don't encourage a beginner to use document.write(). While it might be useful for a test program, it is rarely what you want to use in a real web page for a variety of reasons.
• Christos: @jfriend00 of course. Just wanted to so it in action. Thanks

Answer 2

The problem is, that return statement breaks your loop and returns the first letter it gets.

If you want to reverse a string - you may try to convert it to the Array, reverse it and concat elements of the new array back to string. I think its a simple solution. Here is a piece of code:

function reverse(str) {
 return str.split('').reverse().join('');
}
console.log(reverse('abc'));