I'm exercising and trying to write a recursive array flattening function. The code goes here:
function flatten() {
var flat = [];
for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
if (arguments[i] instanceof Array) {
flat.push(flatten(arguments[i]));
}
flat.push(arguments[i]);
}
return flat;
}
The problem is that if I pass there an array or nested arrays I get the "maximum call stack size exceeded" error. What am I doing wrong?
The problem is how you are passing the processing of array, if the value is an array then you are keep calling it causing an infinite loop
function flatten() {
var flat = [];
for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
if (arguments[i] instanceof Array) {
flat.push.apply(flat, flatten.apply(this, arguments[i]));
} else {
flat.push(arguments[i]);
}
}
return flat;
}
Demo: Fiddle
Here's a more modern version:
function flatten(items) {
const flat = [];
items.forEach(item => {
if (Array.isArray(item)) {
flat.push(...flatten(item));
} else {
flat.push(item);
}
});
return flat;
}
A Haskellesque approach...
function flatArray([x,...xs]){
return x !== undefined ? [...Array.isArray(x) ? flatArray(x) : [x],...flatArray(xs)]
: [];
}
var na = [[1,2],[3,[4,5]],[6,7,[[[8],9]]],10];
fa = flatArray(na);
console.log(fa);[...arr.toString().split(",")]
Use the toString() method of the Object. Use a spread operator (...) to make an array of string and split it by ",".
Example:
let arr =[["1","2"],[[[3]]]]; // output : ["1", "2", "3"]
Your code is missing an else statement and the recursive call is incorrect (you pass the same array over and over instead of passing its items).
Your function could be written like this:
function flatten() {
// variable number of arguments, each argument could be:
// - array
// array items are passed to flatten function as arguments and result is appended to flat array
// - anything else
// pushed to the flat array as-is
var flat = [],
i;
for (i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
if (arguments[i] instanceof Array) {
flat = flat.concat(flatten.apply(null, arguments[i]));
} else {
flat.push(arguments[i]);
}
}
return flat;
}
// flatten([[[[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]], [[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]]], [[[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]], [[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]]]]);
// [0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2]
If you assume your first argument is an array, you can make this pretty simple.
function flatten(a) {
return a.reduce((flat, i) => {
if (Array.isArray(i)) {
return flat.concat(flatten(i));
}
return flat.concat(i);
}, []);
}
If you did want to flatten multiple arrays just concat them before passing.
If the item is array, we simply add all the remaining items to this array
function flatten(array, result) {
if (array.length === 0) {
return result
}
var head = array[0]
var rest = array.slice(1)
if (Array.isArray(head)) {
return flatten(head.concat(rest), result)
}
result.push(head)
return flatten(rest, result)
}
console.log(flatten([], []))
console.log(flatten([1], []))
console.log(flatten([1,2,3], []))
console.log(flatten([1,2,[3,4]], []))
console.log(flatten([1,2,[3,[4,5,6]]], []))
console.log(flatten([[1,2,3],[4,5,6]], []))
console.log(flatten([[1,2,3],[[4,5],6,7]], []))
console.log(flatten([[1,2,3],[[4,5],6,[7,8,9]]], []))If someone looking for flatten array of objects (e.g. tree) so here is a code:
function flatten(items) {
const flat = [];
items.forEach(item => {
flat.push(item)
if (Array.isArray(item.children) && item.children.length > 0) {
flat.push(...flatten(item.children));
delete item.children
}
delete item.children
});
return flat;
}
var test = [
{children: [
{children: [], title: '2'}
],
title: '1'},
{children: [
{children: [], title: '4'},
{children: [], title: '5'}
],
title: '3'}
]
console.log(flatten(test))This is a Vanilla JavaScript solution to this problem
var _items = {'keyOne': 'valueOne', 'keyTwo': 'valueTwo', 'keyThree': ['valueTree', {'keyFour': ['valueFour', 'valueFive']}]};
// another example
// _items = ['valueOne', 'valueTwo', {'keyThree': ['valueTree', {'keyFour': ['valueFour', 'valueFive']}]}];
// another example
/*_items = {"data": [{
"rating": "0",
"title": "The Killing Kind",
"author": "John Connolly",
"type": "Book",
"asin": "0340771224",
"tags": "",
"review": "i still haven't had time to read this one..."
}, {
"rating": "0",
"title": "The Third Secret",
"author": "Steve Berry",
"type": "Book",
"asin": "0340899263",
"tags": "",
"review": "need to find time to read this book"
}]};*/
function flatten() {
var results = [],
arrayFlatten;
arrayFlatten = function arrayFlattenClosure(items) {
var key;
for (key in items) {
if ('object' === typeof items[key]) {
arrayFlatten(items[key]);
} else {
results.push(items[key]);
}
}
};
arrayFlatten(_items);
return results;
}
console.log(flatten());Here you are my functional approach:
const deepFlatten = (array => (array, start = []) => array.reduce((acc, curr) => {
return Array.isArray(curr) ? deepFlatten(curr, acc) : [...acc, curr];
}, start))();
console.log(deepFlatten([[1,2,[3, 4, [5, [6]]]],7]));
flat():const array = [1, 1, [2, 2], [[3, [4], 3], 2]]
// All layers
array.flat(Infinity) // [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2]
// Varying depths
array.flat() // [1, 1, 2, 2, Array(3), 2]
array.flat(2) // [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, Array(1), 3, 2]
array.flat().flat() // [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, Array(1), 3, 2]
array.flat(3) // [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2]
array.flat().flat().flat() // [1, 1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 3, 2]
Mozilla Docs
Can I Use - 84% Nov 2019
This should work
function flatten() {
var flat = [
];
for (var i = 0; i < arguments.length; i++) {
flat = flat.concat(arguments[i]);
}
var removeIndex = [
];
for (var i = flat.length - 1; i >= 0; i--) {
if (flat[i] instanceof Array) {
flat = flat.concat(flatten(flat[i]));
removeIndex.push(i);
}
}
for (var i = 0; i < removeIndex.length; i++) {
flat.splice(removeIndex - i, 1);
}
return flat;
}
The other answers already did point to the source of the OP's code malfunction. Writing more descriptive code, the problem literally boils down to an "array-detection/-reduce/-concat-recursion" ...
(function (Array, Object) {
//"use strict";
var
array_prototype = Array.prototype,
array_prototype_slice = array_prototype.slice,
expose_internal_class = Object.prototype.toString,
isArguments = function (type) {
return !!type && (/^\[object\s+Arguments\]$/).test(expose_internal_class.call(type));
},
isArray = function (type) {
return !!type && (/^\[object\s+Array\]$/).test(expose_internal_class.call(type));
},
array_from = ((typeof Array.from == "function") && Array.from) || function (listAlike) {
return array_prototype_slice.call(listAlike);
},
array_flatten = function flatten (list) {
list = (isArguments(list) && array_from(list)) || list;
if (isArray(list)) {
list = list.reduce(function (collector, elm) {
return collector.concat(flatten(elm));
}, []);
}
return list;
}
;
array_prototype.flatten = function () {
return array_flatten(this);
};
}(Array, Object));
borrowing code from one of the other answers as proof of concept ...
console.log([
[[[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]], [[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]]],
[[[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]], [[0, 1, 2], [0, 1, 2]]]
].flatten());
//[0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, 0, 1, 2, ..., ..., ..., 0, 1, 2]
Here's a recursive reduce implementation taken from absurdum that mimics lodash's _.concat()
It can take any number of array or non-array arguments. The arrays can be any level of depth. The resulting output will be a single array of flattened values.
export const concat = (...arrays) => {
return flatten(arrays, []);
}
function flatten(array, initial = []) {
return array.reduce((acc, curr) => {
if(Array.isArray(curr)) {
acc = flatten(curr, acc);
} else {
acc.push(curr);
}
return acc;
}, initial);
}
It can take any number of arrays or non-array values as input.
Source: I'm the author of absurdum
Modern but not crossbrowser
function flatten(arr) {
return arr.flatMap(el => {
if(Array.isArray(el)) {
return flatten(el)
} else {
return el;
}
})
}
you should add stop condition for the recursion .
as an example if len (arguments[i]) ==0 return
