How to compare arrays in JavaScript?

Question

I'd like to compare two arrays... ideally, efficiently. Nothing fancy, just true if they are identical, and false if not. Not surprisingly, the comparison operator doesn't seem to work.

var a1 = [1,2,3];
var a2 = [1,2,3];
console.log(a1==a2);    // Returns false
console.log(JSON.stringify(a1)==JSON.stringify(a2));    // Returns true

JSON encoding each array does, but is there a faster or "better" way to simply compare arrays without having to iterate through each value?

Answer 1

In my case compared arrays contain only numbers and strings. This function will show you if arrays contain same elements.

function are_arrs_match(arr1, arr2){
    return arr1.sort().toString() === arr2.sort().toString()
}

Let's test it!

arr1 = [1, 2, 3, 'nik']
arr2 = ['nik', 3, 1, 2]
arr3 = [1, 2, 5]

console.log (are_arrs_match(arr1, arr2)) //true
console.log (are_arrs_match(arr1, arr3)) //false

Answer 2

If the array is plain and the order is matter so this two lines may help

//Assume
var a = ['a','b', 'c']; var b = ['a','e', 'c'];  

if(a.length !== b.length) return false;
return !a.reduce(
  function(prev,next,idx, arr){ return prev || next != b[idx] },false
); 

Reduce walks through one of array and returns 'false' if at least one element of 'a' is nor equial to element of 'b' Just wrap this into function

Answer 3

Even though this has a lot of answers, one that I believe to be of help:

const newArray = [ ...new Set( [...arr1, ...arr2] ) ]

It is not stated in the question how the structure of the array is going to look like, so If you know for sure that you won't have nested arrays nor objects in you array (it happened to me, that's why I came to this answer) the above code will work.

What happens is that we use spread operator ( ... ) to concat both arrays, then we use Set to eliminate any duplicates. Once you have that you can compare their sizes, if all three arrays have the same size you are good to go.

This answer also ignores the order of elements, as I said, the exact situation happened to me, so maybe someone in the same situation might end up here (as I did).

---

Edit1.

Answering Dmitry Grinko's question: "Why did you use spread operator ( ... ) here - ...new Set ? It doesn't work"

Consider this code:

const arr1 = [ 'a', 'b' ]
const arr2 = [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ]
const newArray = [ new Set( [...arr1, ...arr2] ) ]
console.log(newArray)

You'll get

[ Set { 'a', 'b', 'c' } ]

In order to work with that value you'd need to use some Set properties (see https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/JavaScript/Reference/Global_Objects/Set). On the other hand, when you use this code:

const arr1 = [ 'a', 'b' ]
const arr2 = [ 'a', 'b', 'c' ]
const newArray = [ ...new Set( [...arr1, ...arr2] ) ]
console.log(newArray)

You'll get

[ 'a', 'b', 'c' ]

That's the difference, the former would give me a Set, it would work too as I could get the size of that Set, but the latter gives me the array I need, what's more direct to the resolution.

Answer 4

On the same lines as JSON.encode is to use join().

function checkArrays( arrA, arrB ){

    //check if lengths are different
    if(arrA.length !== arrB.length) return false;


    //slice so we do not effect the original
    //sort makes sure they are in order
    //join makes it a string so we can do a string compare
    var cA = arrA.slice().sort().join(","); 
    var cB = arrB.slice().sort().join(",");

    return cA===cB;

}

var a = [1,2,3,4,5];
var b = [5,4,3,2,1];
var c = [1,2,3,4];
var d = [1,2,3,4,6];
var e = ["1","2","3","4","5"];  //will return true

console.log( checkArrays(a,b) );  //true
console.log( checkArrays(a,c) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,d) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,e) );  //true

Only problem is if you care about types which the last comparison tests. If you care about types, you will have to loop.

function checkArrays( arrA, arrB ){

    //check if lengths are different
    if(arrA.length !== arrB.length) return false;

    //slice so we do not effect the orginal
    //sort makes sure they are in order
    var cA = arrA.slice().sort(); 
    var cB = arrB.slice().sort();

    for(var i=0;i<cA.length;i++){
         if(cA[i]!==cB[i]) return false;
    }

    return true;

}

var a = [1,2,3,4,5];
var b = [5,4,3,2,1];
var c = [1,2,3,4];
var d = [1,2,3,4,6];
var e = ["1","2","3","4","5"];

console.log( checkArrays(a,b) );  //true
console.log( checkArrays(a,c) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,d) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,e) );  //false

If the order should remain the same, than it is just a loop, no sort is needed.

function checkArrays( arrA, arrB ){

    //check if lengths are different
    if(arrA.length !== arrB.length) return false;


    for(var i=0;i<arrA.length;i++){
         if(arrA[i]!==arrB[i]) return false;
    }

    return true;

}

var a = [1,2,3,4,5];
var b = [5,4,3,2,1];
var c = [1,2,3,4];
var d = [1,2,3,4,6];
var e = ["1","2","3","4","5"];

console.log( checkArrays(a,a) );  //true
console.log( checkArrays(a,b) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,c) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,d) );  //false
console.log( checkArrays(a,e) );  //false

Answer 5

It's unclear what you mean by "identical". For example, are the arrays a and b below identical (note the nested arrays)?

var a = ["foo", ["bar"]], b = ["foo", ["bar"]];

Here's an optimized array comparison function that compares corresponding elements of each array in turn using strict equality and does not do recursive comparison of array elements that are themselves arrays, meaning that for the above example, arraysIdentical(a, b) would return false. It works in the general case, which JSON- and join()-based solutions will not:

function arraysIdentical(a, b) {
    var i = a.length;
    if (i != b.length) return false;
    while (i--) {
        if (a[i] !== b[i]) return false;
    }
    return true;
};

Answer 6

Comparing 2 arrays:

var arr1 = [1,2,3];
var arr2 = [1,2,3];

function compare(arr1,arr2)
{
  if((arr1 == arr2) && (arr1.length == arr2.length))
    return true;
  else
    return false;
}

calling function

var isBool = compare(arr1.sort().join(),arr2.sort().join());