Is there an indexOf in javascript to search an arr

Question

I need the index of the first value in the array, that matches a custom compare function.

The very nice underscorej has a "find" function that returns the first value where a function returns true, but I would need this that returns the index instead. Is there a version of indexOf available somewhere, where I can pass a function used to comparing?

Thanks for any suggestions!

Answer 1

The javascript array method filter returns a subset of the array that return true from the function passed.

var arr= [1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6],
first= arr.filter(function(itm){
    return itm>3;
})[0];
alert(first);

if you must support IE before #9 you can 'shim' Array.prototype.filter-

Array.prototype.filter= Array.prototype.filter || function(fun, scope){
    var T= this, A= [], i= 0, itm, L= T.length;
    if(typeof fun== 'function'){
        while(i<L){
            if(i in T){
                itm= T[i];
                if(fun.call(scope, itm, i, T)) A[A.length]= itm;
            }
            ++i;
        }
    }
    return A;
}

Answer 2

Here comes the coffeescript version of nrabinowitz's code.

# save a reference to the core implementation
indexOfValue = _.indexOf

# using .mixin allows both wrapped and unwrapped calls:
# _(array).indexOf(...) and _.indexOf(array, ...)
_.mixin ({
    # return the index of the first array element passing a test
    indexOf: (array, test) ->
        # delegate to standard indexOf if the test isn't a function
        if (!_.isFunction(test))
            return indexOfValue(array, test)
        # otherwise, look for the index
        for item, i in array
            return i if (test(item))
        # not found, return fail value
        return -1
})

Answer 3

using underscore I came up with something copied from their find implementation using _.any:

findIndex = function (obj, iterator, context) {
    var idx;
    _.any(obj, function (value, index, list) {
        if (iterator.call(context, value, index, list)) {
            idx = index;
            return true;
        }
    });
    return idx;
};

What do you think - do you have any better solutions?

Answer 4

There's a standard function in ECMAScript 2015 for Array.prototype.findIndex(). Currently it's implemented in all major browsers apart from Internet Explorer.

Here's a polyfill, courtesy of the Mozilla Developer Network:

// https://tc39.github.io/ecma262/#sec-array.prototype.findIndex
if (!Array.prototype.findIndex) {
  Object.defineProperty(Array.prototype, 'findIndex', {
    value: function(predicate) {
     // 1. Let O be ? ToObject(this value).
      if (this == null) {
        throw new TypeError('"this" is null or not defined');
      }

      var o = Object(this);

      // 2. Let len be ? ToLength(? Get(O, "length")).
      var len = o.length >>> 0;

      // 3. If IsCallable(predicate) is false, throw a TypeError exception.
      if (typeof predicate !== 'function') {
        throw new TypeError('predicate must be a function');
      }

      // 4. If thisArg was supplied, let T be thisArg; else let T be undefined.
      var thisArg = arguments[1];

      // 5. Let k be 0.
      var k = 0;

      // 6. Repeat, while k < len
      while (k < len) {
        // a. Let Pk be ! ToString(k).
        // b. Let kValue be ? Get(O, Pk).
        // c. Let testResult be ToBoolean(? Call(predicate, T, « kValue, k, O »)).
        // d. If testResult is true, return k.
        var kValue = o[k];
        if (predicate.call(thisArg, kValue, k, o)) {
          return k;
        }
        // e. Increase k by 1.
        k++;
      }

      // 7. Return -1.
      return -1;
    },
    configurable: true,
    writable: true
  });
}

Answer 5

Here's the Underscore way to do it - this augments the core Underscore function with one that accepts an iterator function:

// save a reference to the core implementation
var indexOfValue = _.indexOf;

// using .mixin allows both wrapped and unwrapped calls:
// _(array).indexOf(...) and _.indexOf(array, ...)
_.mixin({

    // return the index of the first array element passing a test
    indexOf: function(array, test) {
        // delegate to standard indexOf if the test isn't a function
        if (!_.isFunction(test)) return indexOfValue(array, test);
        // otherwise, look for the index
        for (var x = 0; x < array.length; x++) {
            if (test(array[x])) return x;
        }
        // not found, return fail value
        return -1;
    }

});

_.indexOf([1,2,3], 3); // 2
_.indexOf([1,2,3], function(el) { return el > 2; } ); // 2

Answer 6

You could do something like this:

Array.prototype.myIndexOf = function(f)
{
    for(var i=0; i<this.length; ++i)
    {
        if( f(this[i]) )
            return i;
    }
    return -1;
};

Regarding Christian's comment: if you override a standard JavaScript method with a custom one with a different the same signature and different functionality, bad thing will likely happen. This is especially true if you're pulling in 3rd party libraries which may depend on the original, say, Array.proto.indexOf. So yeah, you probably want to call it something else.