[javascript] functional way to iterate over range (ES6/7)

What is the best way to do the below in more functional way (with ES6/ES7)

let cols = [];
for (let i =0; i <= 7; i++) {
   cols.push(i * i);
}
return cols;

I tried like,

return [ ...7 ].map(i => {
  return i * i;
});

but that translated to

[].concat(7).map(function (n) {
  return n * n;
});

which is not what I expected.

EDIT:

@pavlo. Indeed, that was a mistake. I was using JSX, and for example, I want 7 divs, (untested)

let cols = [];
    for (let i =0; i <= 7; i++) {
       cols.push(<div id={i}> ...  </div>)
    }
    return cols;

so the idea was indeed to reduce the number of temp variables and procedural feel.

ES7 Proposal

Warning: Unfortunately I believe most popular platforms have dropped support for comprehensions. See below for the well-supported ES6 method

You can always use something like:

[for (i of Array(7).keys()) i*i];

Running this code on Firefox:

[ 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36 ]

This works on Firefox (it was a proposed ES7 feature), but it has been dropped from the spec. IIRC, Babel 5 with "experimental" enabled supports this.

This is your best bet as array-comprehension are used for just this purpose. You can even write a range function to go along with this:

var range = (u, l = 0) => [ for( i of Array(u - l).keys() ) i + l ]

Then you can do:

[for (i of range(5)) i*i] // 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25
[for (i of range(5,3)) i*i] // 9, 16, 25

ES6

A nice way to do this any of:

[...Array(7).keys()].map(i => i * i);
Array(7).fill().map((_,i) => i*i);
[...Array(7)].map((_,i) => i*i);

This will output:

[ 0, 1, 4, 9, 16, 25, 36 ]

Here's an approach using generators:

function* square(n) {
    for (var i = 0; i < n; i++ ) yield i*i;
}

Then you can write

console.log(...square(7));

Another idea is:

[...Array(5)].map((_, i) => i*i)

Array(5) creates an unfilled five-element array. That's how Array works when given a single argument. We use the spread operator to create an array with five undefined elements. That we can then map. See http://ariya.ofilabs.com/2013/07/sequences-using-javascript-array.html.

Alternatively, we could write

Array.from(Array(5)).map((_, i) => i*i)

or, we could take advantage of the second argument to Array#from to skip the map and write

Array.from(Array(5), (_, i) => i*i)

A horrible hack which I saw recently, which I do not recommend you use, is

[...1e4+''].map((_, i) => i*i)