How can I create every combination possible for the contents of two arrays?

Question

I have two arrays:

var array1 = ["A", "B", "C"];
var array2 = ["1", "2", "3"];

How can I set another array to contain every combination of the above, so that:

var combos = ["A1", "A2", "A3", "B1", "B2", "B3", "C1", "C2", "C3"];

Answer 1

Or if you'd like to create combinations with an arbitrary number of arrays of arbitrary sizes...(I'm sure you can do this recursively, but since this isn't a job interview, I'm instead using an iterative "odometer" for this...it increments a "number" with each digit a "base-n" digit based on the length of each array)...for example...

combineArrays([ ["A","B","C"],
                ["+", "-", "*", "/"],
                ["1","2"] ] )

...returns...

[
   "A+1","A+2","A-1", "A-2",
   "A*1", "A*2", "A/1", "A/2", 
   "B+1","B+2","B-1", "B-2",
   "B*1", "B*2", "B/1", "B/2", 
   "C+1","C+2","C-1", "C-2",
   "C*1", "C*2", "C/1", "C/2"
]

...each of these corresponding to an "odometer" value that picks an index from each array...

[0,0,0], [0,0,1], [0,1,0], [0,1,1]
[0,2,0], [0,2,1], [0,3,0], [0,3,1]
[1,0,0], [1,0,1], [1,1,0], [1,1,1]
[1,2,0], [1,2,1], [1,3,0], [1,3,1]
[2,0,0], [2,0,1], [2,1,0], [2,1,1]
[2,2,0], [2,2,1], [2,3,0], [2,3,1]

The "odometer" method allows you to easily generate the type of output you want, not just the concatenated strings like we have here. Besides that, by avoiding recursion we avoid the possibility of -- dare I say it? -- a stack overflow...

function combineArrays( array_of_arrays ){

    // First, handle some degenerate cases...

    if( ! array_of_arrays ){
        // Or maybe we should toss an exception...?
        return [];
    }

    if( ! Array.isArray( array_of_arrays ) ){
        // Or maybe we should toss an exception...?
        return [];
    }

    if( array_of_arrays.length == 0 ){
        return [];
    }

    for( let i = 0 ; i < array_of_arrays.length; i++ ){
        if( ! Array.isArray(array_of_arrays[i]) || array_of_arrays[i].length == 0 ){
            // If any of the arrays in array_of_arrays are not arrays or zero-length, return an empty array...
            return [];
        }
    }

    // Done with degenerate cases...

    // Start "odometer" with a 0 for each array in array_of_arrays.
    let odometer = new Array( array_of_arrays.length );
    odometer.fill( 0 ); 

    let output = [];

    let newCombination = formCombination( odometer, array_of_arrays );

    output.push( newCombination );

    while ( odometer_increment( odometer, array_of_arrays ) ){
        newCombination = formCombination( odometer, array_of_arrays );
        output.push( newCombination );
    }

    return output;
}/* combineArrays() */


// Translate "odometer" to combinations from array_of_arrays
function formCombination( odometer, array_of_arrays ){
    // In Imperative Programmingese (i.e., English):
    // let s_output = "";
    // for( let i=0; i < odometer.length; i++ ){
    //    s_output += "" + array_of_arrays[i][odometer[i]]; 
    // }
    // return s_output;

    // In Functional Programmingese (Henny Youngman one-liner):
    return odometer.reduce(
      function(accumulator, odometer_value, odometer_index){
        return "" + accumulator + array_of_arrays[odometer_index][odometer_value];
      },
      ""
    );
}/* formCombination() */

function odometer_increment( odometer, array_of_arrays ){

    // Basically, work you way from the rightmost digit of the "odometer"...
    // if you're able to increment without cycling that digit back to zero,
    // you're all done, otherwise, cycle that digit to zero and go one digit to the
    // left, and begin again until you're able to increment a digit
    // without cycling it...simple, huh...?

    for( let i_odometer_digit = odometer.length-1; i_odometer_digit >=0; i_odometer_digit-- ){ 

        let maxee = array_of_arrays[i_odometer_digit].length - 1;         

        if( odometer[i_odometer_digit] + 1 <= maxee ){
            // increment, and you're done...
            odometer[i_odometer_digit]++;
            return true;
        }
        else{
            if( i_odometer_digit - 1 < 0 ){
                // No more digits left to increment, end of the line...
                return false;
            }
            else{
                // Can't increment this digit, cycle it to zero and continue
                // the loop to go over to the next digit...
                odometer[i_odometer_digit]=0;
                continue;
            }
        }
    }/* for( let odometer_digit = odometer.length-1; odometer_digit >=0; odometer_digit-- ) */

}/* odometer_increment() */