In Javascript: Math.max and Math.min do not work for BigInt types.

For example:

> Math.max(1n, 2n)
Thrown:
TypeError: Cannot convert a BigInt value to a number
    at Math.max (<anonymous>)
>

Is there a built in function that performs these operations on BigInts?

In Javascript: Math.max and Math.min do not work for BigInt types.

For example:

> Math.max(1n, 2n)
Thrown:
TypeError: Cannot convert a BigInt value to a number
    at Math.max (<anonymous>)
>

Is there a built in function that performs these operations on BigInts?

• javascript
• bigint

2 Answers 2

how about

const bigIntMax = (...args) => args.reduce((m, e) => e > m ? e : m);
const bigIntMin = (...args) => args.reduce((m, e) => e < m ? e : m);

also if you want both then

const bigIntMinAndMax = (...args) => {
  return args.reduce(([min,max], e) => {
     return [
       e < min ? e : min, 
       e > max ? e : max,
     ];
  }, [args[0], args[0]]);
};

const [min, max] = bigIntMinAndMax(
   BigInt(40),
   BigInt(50),
   BigInt(30),
   BigInt(10),
   BigInt(20),
);

After some googleing it looks like the answer is no, Javascript has no builtin functions for this.

Here is an implementation of min and max for bigints that matches the signature of the built in ones, except that it throws errors for empty lists (instead of returning +/-Infinity, as BigInt can't represent infinity):

function bigint_min(...args){
    if (args.length < 1){ throw 'Min of empty list'; }
    m = args[0];
    args.forEach(a=>{if (a < m) {m = a}});
    return m;
}

function bigint_max(...args){
    if (args.length < 1){ throw 'Max of empty list'; }
    m = args[0];
    args.forEach(a=>{if (a > m) {m = a}});
    return m;
}