Dividing an array by filter function

Question

I have a Javascript array that I would like to split into two based on whether a function called on each element returns true or false. Essentially, this is an array.filter, but I'd like to also have on hand the elements that were filtered out.

Currently, my plan is to use array.forEach and call the predicate function on each element. Depending on whether this is true or false, I will push the current element onto one of the two new arrays. Is there a more elegant or otherwise better way to do this? An array.filter where the will push the element onto another array before it returns false, for instance?

Answer 1

You can use reduce for it:

function partition(array, callback){
  return array.reduce(function(result, element, i) {
    callback(element, i, array) 
      ? result[0].push(element) 
      : result[1].push(element);

        return result;
      }, [[],[]]
    );
 };

Update. Using ES6 syntax you also can do that using recursion:

function partition([current, ...tail], f, [left, right] = [[], []]) {
    if(current === undefined) {
        return [left, right];
    }
    if(f(current)) {
        return partition(tail, f, [[...left, current], right]);
    }
    return partition(tail, f, [left, [...right, current]]);
}

Answer 2

Easy to read one.

const partition = (arr, condition) => {
    const trues = arr.filter(el => condition(el));
    const falses = arr.filter(el => !condition(el));
    return [trues, falses];
};

// sample usage
const nums = [1,2,3,4,5,6,7]
const [evens, odds] = partition(nums, (el) => el%2 == 0)

Answer 3

This sounds very similar to Ruby's Enumerable#partition method.

If the function can't have side-effects (i.e., it can't alter the original array), then there's no more efficient way to partition the array than iterating over each element and pushing the element to one of your two arrays.

That being said, it's arguably more "elegant" to create a method on Array to perform this function. In this example, the filter function is executed in the context of the original array (i.e., this will be the original array), and it receives the element and the index of the element as arguments (similar to jQuery's each method):

Array.prototype.partition = function (f){
  var matched = [],
      unmatched = [],
      i = 0,
      j = this.length;

  for (; i < j; i++){
    (f.call(this, this[i], i) ? matched : unmatched).push(this[i]);
  }

  return [matched, unmatched];
};

console.log([1, 2, 3, 4, 5].partition(function (n, i){
  return n % 2 == 0;
}));

//=> [ [ 2, 4 ], [ 1, 3, 5 ] ]

Answer 4

You can use lodash.partition

var users = [
  { 'user': 'barney',  'age': 36, 'active': false },
  { 'user': 'fred',    'age': 40, 'active': true },
  { 'user': 'pebbles', 'age': 1,  'active': false }
];

_.partition(users, function(o) { return o.active; });
// → objects for [['fred'], ['barney', 'pebbles']]

// The `_.matches` iteratee shorthand.
_.partition(users, { 'age': 1, 'active': false });
// → objects for [['pebbles'], ['barney', 'fred']]

// The `_.matchesProperty` iteratee shorthand.
_.partition(users, ['active', false]);
// → objects for [['barney', 'pebbles'], ['fred']]

// The `_.property` iteratee shorthand.
_.partition(users, 'active');
// → objects for [['fred'], ['barney', 'pebbles']]

or ramda.partition

R.partition(R.contains('s'), ['sss', 'ttt', 'foo', 'bars']);
// => [ [ 'sss', 'bars' ],  [ 'ttt', 'foo' ] ]

R.partition(R.contains('s'), { a: 'sss', b: 'ttt', foo: 'bars' });
// => [ { a: 'sss', foo: 'bars' }, { b: 'ttt' }  ]