Difference and intersection of two arrays containing objects

Question

I have two arrays list1 and list2 which have objects with some properties; userId is the Id or unique property:

list1 = [
    { userId: 1234, userName: 'XYZ'  }, 
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  }, 
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1237, userName: 'WXYZ' }, 
    { userId: 1238, userName: 'LMNO' }
]

list2 = [
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  },  
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1252, userName: 'AAAA' }
]

I'm looking for an easy way to execute the following three operations:

1. list1 operation list2 should return the intersection of elements:

   [
       { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  },
       { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' }
   ]
   

2. list1 operation list2 should return the list of all elements from list1 which don't occur in list2:

   [
       { userId: 1234, userName: 'XYZ'  },
       { userId: 1237, userName: 'WXYZ' }, 
       { userId: 1238, userName: 'LMNO' }
   ]
   

3. list2 operation list1 should return the list of elements from list2 which don't occur in list1:

   [
       { userId: 1252, userName: 'AAAA' }
   ]
   

Answer 1

You could define three functions inBoth, inFirstOnly, and inSecondOnly which all take two lists as arguments, and return a list as can be understood from the function name. The main logic could be put in a common function operation that all three rely on.

Here are a few implementations for that operation to choose from, for which you can find a snippet further down:

• Plain old JavaScript for loops
• Arrow functions using filter and some array methods
• Optimised lookup with a Set

Plain old for loops

// Generic helper function that can be used for the three operations:        
function operation(list1, list2, isUnion) {
    var result = [];
    
    for (var i = 0; i < list1.length; i++) {
        var item1 = list1[i],
            found = false;
        for (var j = 0; j < list2.length && !found; j++) {
            found = item1.userId === list2[j].userId;
        }
        if (found === !!isUnion) { // isUnion is coerced to boolean
            result.push(item1);
        }
    }
    return result;
}

// Following functions are to be used:
function inBoth(list1, list2) {
    return operation(list1, list2, true);
}

function inFirstOnly(list1, list2) {
    return operation(list1, list2);
}

function inSecondOnly(list1, list2) {
    return inFirstOnly(list2, list1);
}

// Sample data
var list1 = [
    { userId: 1234, userName: 'XYZ'  }, 
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  }, 
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1237, userName: 'WXYZ' }, 
    { userId: 1238, userName: 'LMNO' }
];
var list2 = [
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  },  
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1252, userName: 'AAAA' }
];
  
console.log('inBoth:', inBoth(list1, list2)); 
console.log('inFirstOnly:', inFirstOnly(list1, list2)); 
console.log('inSecondOnly:', inSecondOnly(list1, list2)); 

Arrow functions using filter and some array methods

This uses some ES5 and ES6 features:

// Generic helper function that can be used for the three operations:        
const operation = (list1, list2, isUnion = false) =>
    list1.filter( a => isUnion === list2.some( b => a.userId === b.userId ) );

// Following functions are to be used:
const inBoth = (list1, list2) => operation(list1, list2, true),
      inFirstOnly = operation,
      inSecondOnly = (list1, list2) => inFirstOnly(list2, list1);

// Sample data
const list1 = [
    { userId: 1234, userName: 'XYZ'  }, 
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  }, 
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1237, userName: 'WXYZ' }, 
    { userId: 1238, userName: 'LMNO' }
];
const list2 = [
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  },  
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1252, userName: 'AAAA' }
];
  
console.log('inBoth:', inBoth(list1, list2)); 
console.log('inFirstOnly:', inFirstOnly(list1, list2)); 
console.log('inSecondOnly:', inSecondOnly(list1, list2));

Optimising lookup

The above solutions have a O(n²) time complexity because of the nested loop -- some represents a loop as well. So for large arrays you'd better create a (temporary) hash on user-id. This can be done on-the-fly by providing a Set (ES6) as argument to a function that will generate the filter callback function. That function can then perform the look-up in constant time with has:

// Generic helper function that can be used for the three operations:        
const operation = (list1, list2, isUnion = false) =>
    list1.filter(
        (set => a => isUnion === set.has(a.userId))(new Set(list2.map(b => b.userId)))
    );

// Following functions are to be used:
const inBoth = (list1, list2) => operation(list1, list2, true),
      inFirstOnly = operation,
      inSecondOnly = (list1, list2) => inFirstOnly(list2, list1);

// Sample data
const list1 = [
    { userId: 1234, userName: 'XYZ'  }, 
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  }, 
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1237, userName: 'WXYZ' }, 
    { userId: 1238, userName: 'LMNO' }
];
const list2 = [
    { userId: 1235, userName: 'ABC'  },  
    { userId: 1236, userName: 'IJKL' },
    { userId: 1252, userName: 'AAAA' }
];
  
console.log('inBoth:', inBoth(list1, list2)); 
console.log('inFirstOnly:', inFirstOnly(list1, list2)); 
console.log('inSecondOnly:', inSecondOnly(list1, list2));