comparing ECMA6 sets for equality

Question

How do you compare two javascript sets? I tried using == and === but both return false.

a = new Set([1,2,3]);
b = new Set([1,3,2]);
a == b; //=> false
a === b; //=> false

These two sets are equivalent, because by definition, sets do not have order (at least not usually). I've looked at the documentation for Set on MDN and found nothing useful. Anyone know how to do this?

Answer 1

lodash provides _.isEqual(), which does deep comparisons. This is very handy if you don't want to write your own. As of lodash 4, _.isEqual() properly compares Sets.

const _ = require("lodash");

let s1 = new Set([1,2,3]);
let s2 = new Set([1,2,3]);
let s3 = new Set([2,3,4]);

console.log(_.isEqual(s1, s2)); // true
console.log(_.isEqual(s1, s3)); // false

Answer 2

If sets contains only primitive data types or object inside sets have reference equality, then there is simpler way

const isEqualSets = (set1, set2) => (set1.size === set2.size) && (set1.size === new Set([...set1, ...set2]).size);

Answer 3

1) Check if sizes are equal . If not, then they are not equal.

2) iterate over each elem of A and check in that exists in B. If one fails return unequal

3) If the above 2 conditions fails that means they are equal.

let isEql = (setA, setB) => {
  if (setA.size !== setB.size)
    return false;
  
  setA.forEach((val) => {
    if (!setB.has(val))
      return false;
  });
  return true;
}

let setA = new Set([1, 2, {
  3: 4
}]);
let setB = new Set([2, {
    3: 4
  },
  1
]);

console.log(isEql(setA, setB));

2) Method 2

let isEql = (A, B) => {
  return JSON.stringify([...A].sort()) == JSON.stringify([...B].sort());
}

let res = isEql(new Set([1, 2, {3:4}]), new Set([{3:4},1, 2]));
console.log(res);

Answer 4

You can also try:

var a = new Set([1,2,3]);
var b = new Set([1,3,2]);

isSetsEqual = (a, b) => a.size === b.size && [...a].every(value => b.has(value));

console.log(isSetsEqual(a,b)) 

Answer 5

I created a quick polyfill for Set.prototype.isEqual()

Set.prototype.isEqual = function(otherSet) {
    if(this.size !== otherSet.size) return false;
    for(let item of this) if(!otherSet.has(item)) return false;
    return true;
}

Github Gist - Set.prototype.isEqual