JavaScript Snippet – Using Degrees with Cosine, Sine & Tangent

Now Available in YourJS

Yesterday I was working with Math.cos, Math.sin and Math.tan and was thinking it would be nice to have the equivalent functions which accept the values in degrees instead of radians. For that reason I wrote the following definitions for Math.cosd, Math.sind and Math.tand:

After executing the above 5 lines you will be able to get the cosine at 45° by doing Math.cosd(45) or the sine at 75° by doing Math.sind(75) or the tangent at 135° by doing Math.tand(135). WARNING: this does extend a built-in object. If you would like these functions in a separate Degrees object so as to avoid mutating a built-in object you could use this:

(function (R) {
  Degrees = {
    cosd: function(d) { return Math.cos(d * R); },
    sind: function(d) { return Math.sin(d * R); },
    tand: function(d) { return Math.tan(d * R); }
  };
})(Math.PI / 180);

Have fun! 😎